STATISTICAL-MECHANICS OF THE 3-DIMENSIONAL EUCLIDEAN BLACK-HOLE

In its formulation as a Chern-Simons theory, three-dimensional general relativity induces a Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) action on spatial bound aries. Treating the horizon of the three-dimensional Euclidean black h ole as a boundary, I count the states of the resulting WZW model, and show that when analytically continued back to Lorentzian signature, th ey yield the correct Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. The relevant states c an be understood as ''would-be gauge'' degrees of freedom that become dynamical at the horizon.