On the black hole/string transition

Understand

We discuss aspects of the possible transition between small black holes and highly excited fundamental strings.

• We focus on the connection between black holes and the self gravitating string solution of Horowitz and Polchinski.
• This solution is interesting because it has non-zero entropy at the classical level and it is natural to suspect that it might be continuously connected to the black hole.
• Surprisingly, we find a different behavior for heterotic and type II cases.