The microscopic state counting of the extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black hole performed by Andrew Strominger and Cumrun Vafa in 1996 has proven to be a central result in string theory. Here, with a philosophical readership in mind, the argument is presented in its contemporary context and its rather complex conceptual structure is analysed. In particular, we will identify the various inter-theoretic relations, such as duality and linkage relations, on which it depends. We further aim to make clear why the argument was immediately recognised as a successful accounting for the entropy of this black hole and how it engendered subsequent work that intended to strengthen the string theoretic analysis of black holes. Its relation to the formulation of the AdS/CFT conjecture will be briefly discussed, and the familiar reinterpretation of the entropy calculation in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence is given. Finally, we discuss the heuristic role that Strominger and Vafa's microscopic account of black hole entropy played for the black hole information paradox. A companion paper analyses the ontology of the Strominger-Vafa black hole states, the question of emergence of the black hole from a collection of D-branes, and the role of the correspondence principle in the context of string theory black holes.

中文翻译：

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弦论中黑洞熵的概念分析

由Andrew Strominger和Cumrun Vafa于1996年进行的极端Reissner-Nordstrom黑洞的微观状态计数已被证明是弦理论的核心结果。在这里，考虑到哲学的读者，该论点是在其当代语境中提出的，并且分析了其相当复杂的概念结构。特别是，我们将确定它所依赖的各种理论间关系，例如对偶关系和联系关系。我们进一步的目的是弄清楚为什么该论点立即被认为是成功解释了该黑洞的熵的原因，以及它如何引发了旨在加强黑洞的弦理论分析的后续工作。将简要讨论其与AdS / CFT猜想公式的关系，并在AdS / CFT对应的上下文中对熵计算进行了熟悉的重新解释。最后，我们讨论了Strominger和Vafa的黑洞熵微观解释对黑洞信息悖论的启发作用。随附的论文分析了Strominger-Vafa黑洞状态的本体论，D形集合中黑洞出现的问题以及对应原理在弦论黑洞背景下的作用。