Thermodynamics of noninteracting superstrings

The gas of noninteracting strings is a very crude approximation to the description to a multistring system. This approximation has been used to discuss string models of the big bang and of the last stages of black hole evaporation. I review the thermodynamics of the gas of noninteracting strings, which are an unusual thermodynamic system, because the density of states instead of growing as a power of energy explodes exponentially. 28 refs., 1 tab. (author)