COUNTING STATES OF NEAR-EXTREMAL BLACK-HOLES

A six-dimensional black string is considered and its Bekenstein-Hawkin g entropy computed. It is shown that to leading order above extremalit y this entropy precisely counts the number of string states with the g iven energy and charges. This identification implies that Hawking deca y of the near-extremal black string can be analyzed in string perturba tion theory and is perturbatively unitary.