A square-lattice hard-core dimer model with links extending beyond nearest-neighbors is studied using a directed-loop Monte Carlo method. An arbitrarily small fraction of next-nearest-neighbor dimers is found to cause deconfinement, whereas a critical state with $r^{ -2}$ distance dependence of the dimer-dimer correlations persists in the presence of longer dimers preserving the bipartite graph structure. However, the critical confinement exponent governing the correlation of two test monomers is non-universal. Implications for resonating-valence-bond states are discussed.
Categories: cond-mat.str-el cond-mat.stat-mech