  Defects are believed to play a fundamental role in the supersolid state of
4He. We have studied solid 4He in two dimensions (2D) as function of the number
of vacancies n_v, up to 30, inserted in the initial configuration at rho =
0.0765 A^-2, close to the melting density, with the exact zero temperature
Shadow Path Integral Ground State method. The crystalline order is found to be
stable also in presence of many vacancies and we observe two completely
different regimes. For small n_v, up to about 6, vacancies form a bound state
and cause a decrease of the crystalline order. At larger n_v, the formation
energy of an extra vacancy at fixed density decreases by one order of magnitude
to about 0.6 K. In the equilibrated state it is no more possible to recognize
vacancies because they mainly transform into quantum dislocations and
crystalline order is found almost independent on how many vacancies have been
inserted in the initial configuration. The one--body density matrix in this
latter regime shows a non decaying large distance tail: dislocations, that in
2D are point defects, turn out to be mobile, their number is fluctuating, and
they are able to induce exchanges of particles across the system mainly
triggered by the dislocation cores. These results indicate that the notion of
incommensurate versus commensurate state loses meaning for solid 4He in 2D,
because the number of lattice sites becomes ill defined when the system is not
commensurate. Crystalline order is found to be stable also in 3D in presence of
up to 100 vacancies.
