Interaction between static holes in a quantum dimer model on the kagome lattice

A quantum dimer model (QDM) on the kagome lattice with an extensive ground-state entropy was recently introduced [Phys. Rev. B 67, 214413 (2003)]. The ground-state energy of this QDM in presence of one and two static holes is investigated by means of exact diagonalizations on lattices containing up to 144 kagome sites. The interaction energy between the holes (at distances up to 7 lattice spacings) is evaluated and the results show no indication of confinement at large hole separations.