Open strings, 2D gravity, and AdS/CFT correspondence - art. no. 084024

We present a detailed discussion of the duality between dilaton gravity on AdS(2) and open strings: The correspondence between the two theories is est ablished using their symmetries and field theoretical, thermodynamic, and s tatistical arguments. We use the dual conformal field theory to describe tw o-dimensional black holes. In particular, an the semiclassical features of the black holes, including the entropy, have a natural interpretation in te rms of the dual microscopic conformal dynamics. The previous results are di scussed in the general framework of the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theo ry dualities.