  We present an alternative scenario for cosmic structure formation where
initial fluctuations are due to Kalb-Ramond axions produced during a pre-big
bang phase of inflation. We investigate whether this scenario, where the
fluctuations are induced by seeds and therefore are of isocurvature nature, can
be brought in agreement with present observations by a suitable choice of
cosmological parameters. We also discuss several observational signatures which
can distinguish axion seeds from standard inflationary models. We finally
discuss the gravitational wave background induced in this model and we show
that it may be well within the range of future observations.
