What are references in PHP and what purpose do they serve?

References in PHP allow you to create two or more variables that refer to the same value in memory. This can be useful when you want to modify a variable's value without making a copy of it. References can be created using the `&` symbol before a variable name. Example:

$a = 5;
$b = &$a;
$b = 10;

echo $a; // Output: 10
echo $b; // Output: 10