Existence of a Semiclassical Approximation in Loop Quantum Gravity
  We consider a spherical symmetric black hole in the Schwarzschild metric and apply Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization to determine the energy levels. The canonical partition function is then computed and we show that the entropy coincides with the Bekenstein-Hawking formula when the maximal number of states for the black hole is the same as computed in loop quantum gravity, proving in this case the existence of a semiclassical limit and obtaining an independent derivation of the Barbero-Immirzi parameter. 
Marco Frasca