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Discontinuous phase transition in a dimer lattice gas

I study a dimer model on the square lattice with nearest-neighbor exclusion as the only interaction. Detailed simulations using tomographic entropic sampling show that as the chemical potential is varied, there is a strongly discontinuous phase transition, at which the particle density jumps by about 18% of its maximum value, 1/4. The transition is accompanied by the onset of orientational order, to an arrangement corresponding to the {1/2,0,1/2} structure identified by Phares et al. [Physica B {\bf 409}, 1096 (2011)] in a dimer model with {\it finite} repulsion at {\it fixed} density. Using finite-size scaling and Binder's cumulant, the expected scaling behavior at a discontinuous transition is verified in detail. The discontinuous transition can be understood qualitatively given that the model possesses eight equivalent maximum-density configurations, so that its coarse-grained description corresponds to that of the q=8 Potts model.