Columnar-disorder phase boundary in a mixture of hard squares and dimers.

A mixture of hard squares, dimers, and vacancies on a square lattice is known to undergo a transition from a low-density disordered phase to a high-density columnar ordered phase. Along the fully packed square-dimer line, the system undergoes a Kosterliz-Thouless-type transition to a phase with power law correlations. We estimate the phase boundary separating the ordered and disordered phases by calculating the interfacial tension between two differently ordered phases within two different approximation schemes. The analytically obtained phase boundary is in good agreement with Monte Carlo simulations.