  Defects are believed to play a fundamental role in the supersolid state of
4He. We report on studies by exact Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulations at
zero temperature of the properties of solid 4He in presence of many vacancies,
up to 30 in two dimensions (2D). In all studied cases the crystalline order is
stable at least as long as the concentration of vacancies is below 2.5%. In the
2D system for a small number, n_v, of vacancies such defects can be identified
in the crystalline lattice and are strongly correlated with an attractive
interaction. On the contrary when n_v~10 vacancies in the relaxed system
disappear and in their place one finds dislocations and a revival of the
Bose-Einstein condensation. Thus, should zero-point motion defects be present
in solid 4He, such defects would be dislocations and not vacancies, at least in
2D. In order to avoid using periodic boundary conditions we have studied the
exact ground state of solid 4He confined in a circular region by an external
potential. We find that defects tend to be localized in an interfacial region
of width of about 15 A. Our computation allows to put as upper bound limit to
zero--point defects the concentration 0.003 in the 2D system close to melting
density.
