The bookだと参照はポインタに似てるけどポインタとは違うと書いてあるね

https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ch04-02-references-and-borrowing.html
A reference is like a pointer in that it’s an address we can follow to access the data stored at that address; that data is owned by some other variable.
Unlike a pointer, a reference is guaranteed to point to a valid value of a particular type for the life of that reference.