Two-dimensional black holes as open strings: a new realization of the ADS/CFT correspondence

We show that weak-coupled two-dimensional dilaton gravity on anti-de Sitter space can be described by the dynamics of an open string. Neumann and Diri chlet boundary conditions for the string lead to two different realizations of the anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory correspondence. In particular , in the Dirichlet case the thermodynamical entropy of two-dimensional blac k holes can be exactly reproduced by counting the string states. (C) 2001 E lsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.