We study a generalisation of thermodynamic geometry to degenerate quantum ground states at zero temperatures exemplified by charged extremal black holes in type II string theories. Several examples of extremal charged black holes with non degenerate thermodynamic geometries and finite but non zero state space scalar curvatures are established. These include black holes described by D1-D5-P and D2-D6-NS5-P brane systems and also two charged small black holes in Type II string theories. We also explore the modifications to the state space geometry and the scalar curvature due to the higher derivative contributions and string loop corrections as well as an exact entropy expression from quantum information theory. Our construction describes state space geometries arising out of a possible limiting thermodynamic characterisation of degenerate quantum ground states at zero temperatures.
We consider the one-loop corrected geometry and thermodynamics of a rotating BTZ black hole by way of a dimensionally reduced dilaton model. The analysis begins with a comprehensive study of the non-extremal solution after which two different methods are invoked to study the extremal case. The first approach considers the extremal limit of the non-extremal calculations, whereas the second treatment is based on the following conjecture: extremal and non-extremal black holes ae qualitatively distinct entities. We show that only the latter method yields regularity and consistency at the one-loop …
We show that the correct entropy, temperature (and absorption probability) of non-extremal black p-brane can be reproduced by a certain thermodynamical model when maximizing its entropy. We show that the form of the model is related to the geometrical similarity of non-extremal and near extremal black p-brane at near horizon region, and argue about the appropriateness of the model.
We investigate the five and six-dimensional black strings within Einstein-Maxwell theory. The extremal black strings are endowed with the null Killing symmetry. We study the propagation of Einstein-Maxwell modes in the extremal black string background by using this symmetry. It turns out that one graviton is a propagating mode, while both the Maxwell $F$ and three-form $H$ fields are non-propagating modes. Further we discuss the stability and classical hair of the extremal black strings.
Analytic solutions to low-energy string theory, which describe arbitrary numbers of extreme `black holes (strings)' in linear dilaton vacua, are found.
We study the near horizon 2d gravity theory which captures the near extremal thermodynamics of BTZ with excess mass $δM$ and excess angular momentum $δJ =\mathcal{L}\, δM$ over extremality. We find that the Jackiw-Teitelboim theory is able to capture such departures from extremality with an additional parameter $\mathcal{L}$ relating it to the near extremal BTZ configuration. We are able to show this by obtaining new simultaneous near horizon near extremal limits of the BTZ geometry parametrized by $\mathcal{L}$. The resulting Jackiw-Teitelboim theory captures the near extremal thermodynamics …
We investigate the black string in the context of the string theories. It is shown that the graviton is the only propagating mode in the (2+1)--dimensional extremal black string background. Both the dilation and axion turn out to be non-propagating modes.
We construct a four-dimensional BPS saturated heterotic string solution from the Taub-NUT solution. It is a non-extremal black hole solution since its Euler number is non-zero. We evaluate its black hole entropy semiclassically. We discuss the relation between the black hole entropy and the degeneracy of string states. The entropy of our string solution can be understood as the microscopic entropy which counts the elementary string states without any complications.
We construct non-extremal as well as extremal black string solutions in minimal five-dimensional supergravity coupled to vector multiplets using dimensional reduction to three Euclidean dimensions. Our method does not assume that the scalar manifold is a symmetric space, and applies as well to a class of non-supersymmetric theories governed by a generalization of special real geometry. We find that five-dimensional black string solutions correspond to geodesics in a specific totally geodesic para-Kähler submanifold of the scalar manifold of the dimensionally reduced theory, and identify the su…
It has been argued recently by Almheiri and Polchinski that the near-horizon conformal symmetry of extremal black holes must be broken due to gravitational backreaction at an IR scale linear in $G_N$. In this paper, we show that this scale coincides with the so-called `thermodynamic mass gap' of near-extremal black holes, a scale which signals the breakdown of their thermodynamic description. We also develop a method which extends the analysis of Almheiri and Polchinski to more complicated models with extremal throats by studying the bulk linearized quantum field theory. Moreover, we show how …
We consider the thermodynamics of the near-extremal NS5-brane in type IIA string theory. The central tool we use is to map phases of six-dimensional Kaluza-Klein black holes to phases of near-extremal M5-branes with a transverse circle in eleven-dimensional supergravity. By S-duality these phases correspond to phases of the near-extremal type IIA NS5-brane. One of our main results is that in the canonical ensemble the usual near-extremal NS5-brane background, dual to a uniformly smeared near-extremal M5-brane, is subdominant to a new background of near-extremal M5-branes localized on the trans…
We discuss a magnetic black-hole solution to the equations of motion of the string-loop-corrected effective action. At the string-tree level, this solution is the extremal magnetic black hole described by the "chiral null model." In the extremal case, the string-loop correction is constant, and this fact is used to analytically solve the loop-corrected equations of motion. In distinction to the tree-level solution, the resulting loop-corrected solution has the horizon at a finite distance from the origin; its location is a function of the loop correction. The loop-corrected configuration is co…
Following the work of Sen, we consider the correspondence between extremal black holes and string states in the context of the entropy. We obtain and study properties of electrically charged black hole backgrounds of tree level heterotic string theory compactified on a $p$ dimensional torus, for $D=(10-p)=4 \ldots 9$. We study in particular a one--parameter extremal class of these black holes, the members of which are shown to be supersymmetric. We find that the entropy of such an extremal black hole, when calculated at the stringy stretched horizon, scales in such a way that it can be identif…
In this survey we study the OSV conjecture for 4D N=2 extremal black holes of type IIB suprstring theory. We apply T-duality to find the generalized prepotential of the low energy limit of this superstring theory up to one-loop order in the closed string coupling. On the other hand, we calculate the tree-level and one-loop free energies of B-model topological string theory. To compare them we will explicitly show that the OSV conjecture holds for type IIB N=2 extremal black holes.
The thermodynamics and weak cosmic censorship conjecture in Reissner-Nordstr$\ddot{o}$m anti-de Sitter black holes are investigated by the scattering of the scalar field. The first law of thermodynamics in the non-extremal Reissner-Nordstr$\ddot{o}$m anti-de Sitter black hole is recovered by the scattering. The increase of the horizon radius indicates that the singularity is not naked in this black hole. For the near-extremal and extremal black holes, the validity is tested by the minimum values of the function $f$ at their final states. It is found that both of the near-extremal and extremal …
We generalize the entropy function formalism to five-dimensional and four-dimensional non-extremal black holes in string theory. In the near horizon limit, these black holes have BTZ metric as part of the spacetime geometry. It is shown that the entropy function formalism also works very well for these non-extremal black holes and it can reproduce the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of these black holes in ten dimensions and lower dimensions.
We study the low temperature expansion of the first law of thermodynamics for near-extremal black holes. We show that for extremal black holes with non-vanishing entropy, the leading order contribution yields an expression for their extremal entropy in agreement with the entropy function result and the Cardy formula for the entropy of a two dimensional chiral conformal field theory (CFT). When their entropy vanishes due to the vanishing of a one-cycle on the horizon, such leading contribution is always compatible with the first law satisfied by a BTZ black hole. These results are universal and…
In this paper we study extremal transitions between heterotic string compactifications, i.e., transitions between pairs (M,V) where M is a Calabi-Yau manifold and V a gauge bundle. Bundle transitions are described using language recently espoused by Friedman, Morgan, Witten. In addition, partly as a check on our methods, we also study how small instantons are described in the same language, and also describe the sheaves corresponding to small instantons.
We study the spectrum of the worldsheet theory of the bosonic closed string in the massless and extremal rotating BTZ black holes. We use a hyperbolic Wakimoto representation of the SL(2,R) currents to construct vertex operators for the string modes on these backgrounds. We argue that there are tachyons in the twisted sector, but these are not localised near the horizon. We study the relation to the null orbifold in the limit of vanishing cosmological constant. We also discuss the problem of extending this analysis to the supersymmetric case.
Recently, it has been proposed that the deformed matrix model describes a two-dimensional type 0A extremal black hole. In this paper, the thermodynamics of 0A charged non-extremal black holes is investigated. We observe that the free energy of the deformed matrix model to leading order in 1/q can be seen to agree to that of the extremal black hole. We also speculate on how the deformed matrix model is able to describe the thermodynamics of non-extremal black holes.
We develop a new formalism for the bosonic sector of low-energy heterotic string theory toroidally compactified to three dimensions. This formalism is based on the use of some single non-quadratic real matrix potential which transforms linearly under the action of subgroup of the three-dimensional charging symmetries. We formulate a new charging symmetry invariant approach for the symmetry generation and straightforward construction of asymptotically flat solutions. Finally, using the developed approach and the established formal analogy between the heterotic and Einstein-Maxwell theories, we …
We show that polarization dependent string-string scattering provides new evidence for the identification of the Dabholkar-Harvey (DH) string solution with the heterotic string itself. First, we construct excited versions of the DH solution which carry arbitrary left-moving waves yet are annihilated by half the supersymmetries. These solutions correspond in a natural way to Bogomolny-bound-saturating excitations of the ground state of the heterotic string. When the excited string solutions are compactified to four dimensions, they reduce to Sen's family of extremal black hole solutions of the …
We study a three-point correlator of the three heavy vertex operators representing the circular winding string states which are point-like in AdS_5 and rotating with two spins and two winding numbers in S^5. We restrict ourselves to the case that two of the three vertex operators are located at the same point. We evaluate semiclassically the specific three-point correlator on a stationary splitting string trajectory which is mapped to the complex plane with three punctures. It becomes an extremal and 4d conformal invariant three-point correlator on the boundary. The marginality condition of th…
We discuss string theory alpha' corrections to charged near-extremal black 3-branes/black holes in type IIB supergravity. We find that supersymmetric global AdS_5 x S^5 geometry is not corrected to leading order in alpha', while charged or non-extremal black 3-branes/black hole geometries receive alpha' corrections. Following gauge theory-string theory correspondence the thermodynamics of these geometries is mapped to the thermodynamics of large-n_c N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at finite (large) 't Hooft coupling with the U(1)_R-charge chemical potential. We use holographic renormaliza…
We demonstrate that, if the usual phenomenological compactifications of IIB string theory with warped throats and anti-branes make sense, there must exist spherical brane shells in 4d that are overcharged. They correspond to classical over-extremal objects but without the usual naked singularities. The objects are made from D3-particles that puff into spherical 5-branes that stabilise at finite radii in 4d and whose inside corresponds to the supersymmetric AdS vacuum. One can think of these shells as stabilised Brown-Teitelboim bubbles. We find that these objects can be significantly larger th…
String theory on 2-d charged black holes corresponding to (SL(2)xU(1)_L)/U(1) exact asymmetric quotient CFTs are investigated. These backgrounds can be embedded, in particular, in a two dimensional heterotic string. In the extremal case, the quotient CFT description captures the near horizon physics, and is equivalent to strings in AdS_2 with a gauge field. Such string vacua possess an infinite space-time Virasoro symmetry, and hence enhancement of global space-time Lie symmetries to affine symmetries, in agreement with the conjectured AdS_2/CFT_1 correspondence. We argue that the entropy of t…
A mild version of the weak gravity conjecture (WGC) states that extremal black holes have charge-to-mass ratio larger or equal than one when higher-curvature interactions are taken into account. Since these corrections become more relevant in the low-mass regime, this would allow the decay of extremal black holes in terms of energy and charge conservation. Evidence in this direction has been mainly given in the context of corrections to Einstein-Maxwell theory. Here we compute corrections to the charge-to-mass ratio of some dyonic extremal black holes explicitly embedded in the heterotic strin…
From the black hole thermodynamics point of view, we show that the entropy function $\mathbf{f}$ and the free energy $F$ are related via $\mathbf{f}=e_{I}q_{I}+Ω_Hq_I{A_ϕ^I}'-\frac{\partial F}{\partial r} |_{r_{H}}$. Assuming the entropy function is known for extremal black holes, we propose an approach to calculate the entropy of non-extremal cases by slightly moving the extremal black hole geometry from extremality. The entropy of non-extremal $D1D5$- and $D1D5p$-branes in the presence of higher derivative corrections are computed as concrete examples. An attempt has also been made to explai…
We discuss how long strings can arise at the stretched horizon and how they can account for the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. We use the thermal scalar field theory to derive the asymptotic density of states and corresponding stress tensor of a microcanonical long string gas in Rindler space. We show that the equality of the Hagedorn and Hawking temperatures gives rise to the tree-level entropy of large black holes in accordance with the Bekenstein-Hawking-Wald formula.
We present string-theory derivation of the semiclassical entropy of extremal dyonic black holes in the approach based on conformal sigma model (NS-NS embedding of the classical solution). We demonstrate (resolving some puzzles existed in previous related discussions) that the degeneracy responsible for the entropy is due to string oscillations in four transverse dimensions `intrinsic' to black hole: four non-compact directions of the D=5 black hole and three non-compact and one compact (responsible for embedding of magnetic charges) dimensions in the D=4 black hole case. Oscillations in other …
We study the near horizon 2d gravity theory which captures the near extremal thermodynamics of Kerr black holes where a linear combination of excess angular momentum $δJ $ and excess mass $δM$ is held fixed. These correspond to processes where both the mass and the angular momenta of extremal Kerr black holes are perturbed leaving them near extremal. For the Kerr $AdS_4$ we hold $δJ-\mathcal{L}\,δM=0 $ while for Myers-Perry(MP) type Kerr black hole in $AdS_5$ we hold $δJ_{φ_{1,2}}\hspace{-0.2cm}-\mathcal{L}_{φ_{1,2}}\,δM=0$. We show that in near horizon, the 2d Jackiw-Teitelboim theory is able…
Families of exact $(0,2)$ supersymmetric conformal field theories of magnetically and electrically charged extremal 4D black hole solutions of heterotic string theory are presented. They are constructed using a $(0,1)$ supersymmetric $SL(2,R)\times SU(2)$ WZW model where anomalously embedded $U(1)\times U(1)$ subgroups are gauged. Crucial cancelations of the $U(1)$ anomalies coming from the supersymmetric fermions, the current algebra fermions and the gauging ensure that there is a consistency of these models at the quantum level. Various 2D models, which may be considered as building blocks f…
We explicitly compute the entropy of an extremal dyonic black hole in heterotic string theory compactified on T^6 or K3\times T^2 by taking into account all the tree level four derivative corrections to the low energy effective action. For supersymmetric black holes the result agrees with the answer obtained earlier 1) by including only the Gauss-Bonnet corrections to the effective action 2) by including all terms related to the curvature squared terms via space-time supersymmetry transformation, and 3) by using general arguments based on the assumption of AdS_3 near horizon geometry and space…
A string-like model with the "cosmological constant" $Λ$ is considered. The Maki-Shiraishi multi-black-hole solution \cite{MS1} is generalized to space-times with a Ricci-flat internal space. For $Λ= 0$ the obtained solution in the one-black-hole case is shown to coincide with the extreme limit of the charged dilatonic black hole solution \cite{BI,BM}. The Hawking temperature $T_H$ for the solution \cite{BI,BM} is presented and its extreme limit is considered. For the string value of dilatonic coupling the temperature $T_H$ does not depend upon the internal space dimension.
We construct the most general non-extremal spherically symmetric instanton solution of a gravity-dilaton-axion system with $SL(2,R)$ symmetry, for arbitrary euclidean spacetime dimension $D\geq 3$. A subclass of these solutions describe completely regular wormhole geometries, whose size is determined by an invariant combination of the $SL(2,R)$ charges. Our results can be applied to four-dimensional effective actions of type II strings compactified on a Calabi-Yau manifold, and in particular to the universal hypermultiplet coupled to gravity. We show that these models contain regular wormhole …
We study the thermodynamical torus partition function of superstring on the near-extremal black NS5-brane background. The exact partition function has been computed with the helps of our previous works:[arXiv:1012.5721 [hep-th]], [arXiv:1109.3365 [hep-th]], and naturally decomposed into two parts. The first part is contributed from strings freely propagating in the asymptotic region, which are identified as the superstring gas at the Hawking temperature on the linear-dilaton background. The second part includes the contribution localized around the `tip of cigar', which characterizes the non-e…
We discuss the thermodynamics of the N=2*, SU(N) gauge theory at large 't Hooft coupling. The tool we use is the non-extremal deformation of the supergravity solution of Pilch and Warner (PW) [hep-th/0004063], dual to N=4, SU(N) gauge theory softly broken to N=2. We construct the exact non-extremal solution in five-dimensional gauged supergravity and further uplift it to ten dimensions. Turning to the thermodynamics, we analytically compute the leading correction in m/T to the free energy of the non-extremal D3 branes due to the PW mass deformation, and find that it is positive. We also demons…
For extremal black holes, the thermodynamic entropy is not proportional to the area. The general form allowed by thermodynamics is worked out for three classes of extremal black hole solutions of string theory and shown to be consistent with the entropy calculated from the density of elementary string states. On the other hand, the entanglement entropy does not in general agree with these results.
We propose a black hole thermodynamic description of highly excited charged and uncharged perturbative string states in 3+1 dimensional type II and 4+1 dimensional heterotic string theory. We also discuss the generalization to extremal and non-extremal black holes carrying magnetic charges.
We study thermodynamic properties of Myers-Perry black holes by deriving explicit fundamental relations from which we can obtain the temperature and specific heat in terms of explicit control parameters in arbitrary dimensions. Using the definition of extremal black holes we establish the generalized Kerr bound in arbitrary dimension. We study thermodynamic geometries of the Myers-Perry black holes with equal angular momenta in arbitrary dimensions and draw thermodynamic cone diagrams which capture the extremal limits of the black holes. Thermodynamic state space is represented geometrically a…
We study general black-hole solutions of the low-energy string effective action in arbitrary dimensions using a general metric that can describe them all in a unified way both in the extreme and non-extreme cases. We calculate the mass, temperature and entropy and study which relations amongst the charges and the mass lead to extremality. We find that the temperature always vanishes in the extreme limit and we find that, for a set of n charges (no further reducible by duality) there are 2^{(n-1)} combinations of the charges that imply extremality. Not all of these combinations can be central c…
We investigate extremal charged black hole solutions in the four-dimensional string frame Gauss-Bonnet gravity with the Maxwell field and the dilaton. Without curvature corrections, the extremal electrically charged dilatonic black holes have singular horizon and zero Bekenstein entropy. When the Gauss-Bonnet term is switched on, the horizon radius expands to a finite value provided curvature corrections are strong enough. Below a certain threshold value of the Gauss-Bonnet coupling the extremal black hole solutions cease to exist. Since decreasing Gauss-Bonnet coupling corresponds to decreasi…
We argue that a near-extremal charge-$k$ type II NS fivebrane can be reliably described in semiclassical string perturbation theory as long as both $k$ and $μ\over k$ are large, where $μ$ is the energy density in string units. For a small value of the asymptotic string coupling $g$, the dynamics in the throat surrounding the fivebrane reduces to the CGHS model with massive fields. We find that the energy density leaks off the brane in the form of Hawking radiation at a rate of order $1 \over k^{7/2}$ in string units independently of $g$ to leading order. In the $g\to 0$ limit the radiation per…
For extremal charged black holes, the thermodynamic entropy is proportional not to the area but to the mass or charges. This is demonstrated here for dyonic extremal black hole solutions of string theory. It is pointed out that these solutions have zero classical action although the area is nonzero. By combining the general form of the entropy allowed by thermodynamics with recent observations in the literature it is possible to fix the entropy almost completely.
The thermodynamics and weak cosmic censorship conjecture in extended phase spaces of charged anti-de Sitter black holes describing the massive gravity are investigated by the absorptions of the scalar particle and fermion. The cosmological constant is seen as a pressure with a conjugate volume. The first law of thermodynamics is recovered. The second law of thermodynamics is violated in the extended phase space of the extremal black hole. For the near-extremal and extremal black holes, the validity of weak cosmic censorship conjecture is tested by evaluating the minimum values of the metric fu…
In the AdS_5/CFT_4 set-up, extremal three-point functions involving two giant 1/2 BPS gravitons and one point-like 1/2 BPS graviton, when calculated using semi-classical string theory methods, match the corresponding three-point functions obtained in the tree-level gauge theory. The string theory computation relies on a certain regularization procedure whose justification is based on the match between gauge and string theory. We revisit the regularization procedure and reformulate it in a way which allows a generalization to the ABJM set-up where three-point functions of 1/2 BPS operators are …
We compute the entropy of extremal black strings in three dimensions, using Strominger's approach to relate the Anti-de-Sitter near-horizon geometry and the conformal field theory at the asymptotic infinity of this geometry. The result is identical to the geometric Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. We further discuss an embedding of three-dimensional black strings in $N=1 D=10$ supergravity and demonstrate that the extremal strings preserve 1/4 of supersymmetries.
We show that the minimally coupled massless scalar wave equation in the background of an six-dimensional extremal dyonic string (or D1-D5 brane intersection) is exactly solvable, in terms of Mathieu functions. Using this fact, we calculate absorption probabilities for these scalar waves, and present the explicit results for the first few low energy corrections to the leading-order expressions. For a specific tuning of the dyonic charges one can reach a domain where the low energy absorption probability goes to zero with inverse powers of the logarithm of the energy. This is a dividing domain b…
In a (2+1)-dimensional spacetime with a negative cosmological constant, the thermodynamics and the entropy of an extremal rotating thin shell, i.e., an extremal rotating ring, are investigated. The outer and inner regions are taken to be the Bañados-Teitelbom-Zanelli (BTZ) spacetime and the vacuum ground state anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime, respectively. By applying the first law of thermodynamics to the extremal shell one shows that its entropy is an arbitrary function of the gravitational area $A_+$ alone, $S=S(A_+)$. When the shell approaches its own gravitational radius $r_+$ and turns in…
We show that the low frequency absorption cross section of minimally coupled test massless scalar fields by extremal spherically symmetric black holes in d dimensions is equal to the horizon area, even in the presence of string--theoretical $α'$ corrections. Classically one has the relation $σ= 4 G S$ between that absorption cross section and the black hole entropy. By comparing in each case the values of the horizon area and Wald's entropy, we discuss the validity of such relation in the presence of higher derivative corrections for extremal black holes in many different contexts: in the pres…
A universal relation between the leading correction to the entropy and extremality was gotten in the work of Goon and Penco. In this paper, we extend this work to the massive gravity and investigate thermodynamic extremality relations in a topologically higher-dimensional black hole. A rescaled cosmological constant is added to the action of the massive gravity as a perturbative correction. This correction modifies the extremality bound of the black hole and leads to the shifts of the mass, entropy, etc. The Goon-Penco relation is gotten. Regarding the cosmological constant as a variable relat…
We construct non-extremal dyonic string solutions in 6D minimal supergravity where the leading higher derivative corrections arise from either the type IIA string theory compactified on K3 or the heterotic string theory compactified on 4-torus. The thermodynamical quantities and Euclidean actions of the strings are computed. In the near extremal regime, we calculate the force felt by a probe fundamental string in the background of the macroscopic dyonic string with leading $α'$ corrections. We find that in both the IIA and heterotic setups, away from extremality, the attractive force overwhelm…
We discuss the string creation in the near-extremal NS1 black string solution. The string creation is described by an effective field equation derived from a fundamental string action coupled to the dilaton field in a conformally invariant manner. In the non-critical string model the dilaton field causes a timelike mirror surface outside the horizon when the size of the black string is comparable to the Planck scale. Since the fundamental strings are reflected by the mirror surface, the negative energy flux does not propagate across the surface. This means that the evaporation stops just befor…
As in the grand canonical treatment of Reissner - Nordström black holes in anti-de Sitter spacetime, the canonical ensemble formulation also shows that non-extremal black holes tend to have lower action than extremal ones. However, some small non-extremal black holes have higher action, leading to the possibility of transitions between non-extremal and extremal black holes.
We calculate alpha'^2-corrections to the entropy of the 5-dimensional 3-charge and the 4-dimensional 4-charge large extremal black holes using the low energy effective action of the heterotic string theory. In the 4-dimensional case, our results are in agreement with the microscopic statistical entropy both for the BPS and the non-BPS black holes. In the more interesting 5-dimensional case, where the direct microscopic stringy description is still unknown, our results for the BPS black holes are in agreement with the results obtained from the action supplemented with R^2-correction obtained by…
We study the properties of anti--de Sitter black holes with a Gauss-Bonnet term for various horizon topologies (k=0, \pm 1) and for various dimensions, with emphasis on the less well understood k=-1 solution. We find that the zero temperature (and zero energy density) extremal states are the local minima of the energy for AdS black holes with hyperbolic event horizons. The hyperbolic AdS black hole may be stable thermodynamically if the background is defined by an extremal solution and the extremal entropy is non-negative. We also investigate the gravitational stability of AdS spacetimes of di…
A six-dimensional black string is considered and its Bekenstein-Hawking entropy computed. It is shown that to leading order above extremality, this entropy precisely counts the number of string states with the given energy and charges. This identification implies that Hawking decay of the near-extremal black string can be analyzed in string perturbation theory and is perturbatively unitary.
