  We present a polymer quantization of spherically symmetric Einstein gravity
in which the polymerized variable is the area of the Einstein-Rosen wormhole
throat. In the classical polymer theory, the singularity is replaced by a
bounce at a radius that depends on the polymerization scale. In the polymer
quantum theory, we show numerically that the area spectrum is evenly-spaced and
in agreement with a Bohr-Sommerfeld semiclassical estimate, and this spectrum
is not qualitatively sensitive to issues of factor ordering or boundary
conditions except in the lowest few eigenvalues. In the limit of small
polymerization scale we recover, within the numerical accuracy, the area
spectrum obtained from a Schrodinger quantization of the wormhole throat
dynamics. The prospects of recovering from the polymer throat theory a full
quantum-corrected spacetime are discussed.
