Dual Brane Pairs, Chains and the Bekenstein-Hawking Entropy

Abstract

A proposal towards a microscopic understanding of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy for D=4 spacetimes with event horizon is made. Since we will not rely on supersymmetry these spacetimes need not be supersymmetric. Euclidean D-branes which wrap the event horizon's boundary will play an important role. After arguing for a discretization of the Euclidean D-brane worldvolume based on the worldvolume uncertainty relation, we count chainlike excitations on the worldvolume of specific dual Euclidean brane pairs. Without the need for supersymmetry it is shown that one can thus reproduce the D=4 Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and its logarithmic correction.