This paper is devoted to the investigation of the consequences of timelike
and spacelike matter inheritance vectors in specific forms of energy-momentum
tensor, i.e., for string cosmology (string cloud and string fluid) and perfect
fluid. Necessary and sufficient conditions are developed for a spacetime with
string cosmology and perfect fluid to admit a timelike matter inheritance
vector, parallel to ua and spacelike matter inheritance vector, parallel to
xa. We compare the outcome with the conditions of conformal Killing vectors.
This comparison provides us the conditions for the existence of matter
inheritance vector when it is also a conformal Killing vector. Finally, we
discuss these results for the existence of matter inheritance vector in the
special cases of the above mentioned spacetimes.Comment: 27 pages, accepted for publication in Int. J. of Mod. Phys.