Near-extremal black hole entropy and fluctuating 3-branes

Abstract

We discuss the known microscopic interpretations of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy for configurations of intersecting M-branes. In some cases the entropy scales as that of a massless field theory on the intersection. A different situation, found for configurations which reduce to 1-charge D=5 black holes or 2-charge D=4 black holes, is explained by a gas of non-critical strings at their Hagedorn temperature. We further suggest that the entropy of configurations reducing to 1-charge D=4 black holes is due to 3-branes moving within 5-branes.