Hagedorn behaviour of little string theory from string corrections to NS5-branes

Following the conjectured duality between near-horizon NS5-branes and littl e string theory, the string-corrected thermodynamics of near-horizon NS5-br anes is studied and found to agree with the statistical thermodynamics of a 5 + 1 dimensional supersymmetric string theory near the Hagedorn temperatu re. Specifically, tree-level corrections to the temperature are argued to v anish, in accordance with the duality, while the one-loop string correction to the NS5-brane thermodynamics is shown to generate the correct temperatu re dependence of the entropy. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.