Quantum Geometry and Black Hole Entropy

A “black hole sector” of nonperturbative canonical quantum gravity is introduced. The quantum black hole degrees of freedom are shown to be described by a Chern-Simons field theory on the horizon. It is shown that the entropy of a large nonrotating black hole is proportional to its horizon area. The constant of proportionality depends upon the Immirzi parameter, which fixes the spectrum of the area operator in loop quantum gravity; an appropriate choice of this parameter gives the Bekenstein-Hawking formula S = A/4ℓ_P². With the same choice of the Immirzi parameter, this result also holds for black holes carrying electric or dilatonic charge, which are not necessarily near extremal.