Black hole entropy from a highly excited elementary string

Abstract

A suggested correspondence between a black hole and a highly excited elementary string is explored. Black hole entropy is calculated by computing the density of states for an open excited string. We identify the square root of the oscillator number of the excited string with the Rindler energy of a black hole to obtain an entropy formula which not only agrees to leading order with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, but also reproduces the logarithmic correction obtained for black hole entropy in the quantum geometry framework. This provides additional supporting evidence for the correspondence between black holes and strings.