String junctions and bound states of intersecting branes

We study four-dimensional black hole configurations which result from wrapping M5-branes on a Calabi-Yau manifold, as well as U-dual realizations. Our aim is to understand the microscopic degrees of freedom responsible for the existence of bound states of multiple branes. The details depend on the chosen U frame; in some cases, they are massless string junctions. We also identify a perturbative description in which these states correspond to twisted strings of intersecting D3-branes at an orbifold singularity. In each case, these are the preponderant states of the spacetime infrared conformal field theory and account for the entropy of the black hole.