Interplay between band crossing and charge density wave instabilities

Our measurements of the Hall coefficient in rare-earth tritelluride compounds reveal a strong hysteresis between cooling and warming in the low-temperature range where a second unidirectional charge density wave (CDW) occurs. We show that this effect results from the interplay between two instabilities: band crossing of the Te p_x and p_y orbitals at the Fermi level and CDW, which have a close energy gain and compete. Calculation of the electron susceptibility at the CDW wave vector with and without band anticrossing reconstruction of the electron spectrum yields a satisfactory estimation of the temperature range of the hysteresis in Hall effect measurements.