  The understanding of lattice instabilities is of vast importance in material
science. The famous example is the Peierls instability of one-dimensional
metals and for strongly-nested Fermi surfaces in two and three dimensions.
Through an analysis of H and Li chains in band theory, we find that the Bloch
wave nature of the wavefunctions, if involving strong k-dependent hybridization
of oppositeparity atomic states, strongly suppresses susceptibility peaks and
associated instabilities and is thus essential to consider in searching for
materials with strong responses to external perturbations.
