  The physics of vortices, instantons and deconfinement is studied for layered
superfluids in connection to bilayer quantum Hall systems at filling fraction
nu=1. We develop an effective gauge theory taking into account both vortices
and instantons induced by interlayer tunneling. The renormalization group flow
of the gauge charge and the instanton fugacity shows that the coupling of the
gauge field to vortex matter produces a continuous transition between the
confining phase of free instantons and condensed vortices and a deconfined
gapless superfluid where magnetic charges are bound into dipoles. The
interlayer tunneling conductance and the layer imbalance induced inhomogeneous
exciton condensate are discussed in connection to experiments.
