  The thermal duality of E(8) x E(8) and SO(32) heterotic string theories may
underpin a mechanism that would convert the kinetic energy of infalling matter
during gravitational collapse to form a region of a hot string phase that would
expel gravitational gradients. This phase would be the continuation of a
Ginzburg-Landau like superconductor in the Euclidean regime. In this scenario,
there would be no event horizon or singularity produced in gravitational
collapse. Solutions are presented for excitations of the string vacuum that may
form during gravitational collapse and drive the transition to the hot phase.
The proposed mechanism is developed here for the case of approximately
spherical gravitational collapse in 4 uncompactified spacetime dimensions. A
way to reconcile the large entropy apparently produced in this process with
quantum mechanics is briefly discussed. In this scenario, astrophysical objects
such as stellar or galactic cores which have undergone extreme gravitational
collapse would currently be sites of an on-going conversion process to shells
of this high temperature phase. The relationship of this proposal to the
`firewall paradox' is noted.
