Vacuum Einstein metrics with bidimensional Killing leaves, I-Local aspects

The solutions of vacuum Einstein's field equations, for the class of Riemannian metrics admitting a non-Abelian bidimensional Lie algebra of Killing fields, are explicitly described. They are parametrized either by solutions of a transcendental equation (the tortoise equation), or by solutions of a linear second order differential equation in two independent variables. Metrics, corresponding to solutions of the tortoise equation, are characterized as those that admit a 3-dimensional Lie algebra of Killing fields with bidimensional leaves.