We construct a class of spin foam models describing matter coupled to gravity, such that the gravitational sector is described by the unitary irreducible representations of the appropriate symmetry group, while the matter sector is described by the finite-dimensional irreducible representations of that group. The corresponding spin foam amplitudes in the four-dimensional gravity case are expressed in terms of the spin network amplitudes for pentagrams with additional external and internal matter edges. We also give a quantum field theory formulation of the model, where the matter degrees of freedom are described by spin network fields carrying the indices from the appropriate group representation. In the non-topological Lorentzian gravity case, we argue that the matter representations should be appropriate SO(3) or SO(2) representations contained in a given Lorentz matter representation, depending on whether one wants to describe a massive or a massless matter field. The corresponding spin network amplitudes are given as multiple integrals of propagators which are matrix spherical functions.

We study quantum corrections for the Schwarzshild black hole by considering it as a vacuum solution of a 2D dilaton gravity theory obtained by spherical reduction of 4D gravity coupled with matter. We find perturbatively the vacuum solution for the standard one-loop effective action in the case of null-dust matter and in the case of minimally coupled scalar field. The corresponding state is in both cases 2D Hartle-Hawking vacuum, and we evaluate the corresponding quantum corrections for the thermodynamical parameters of the black hole. We also find that the standard effective action does not allow boundary conditions corresponding to a 4D Hartle-Hawking vacuum state.Comment: 19 pages, Latex, some corrections are made in Sect.