  Shen et al. [1] recently reported on ARPES data from Pb-Bi2201 revealing both
particle-hole symmetry breaking and pronounced spectral broadening, which they
interpret to be indicative of spatial symmetry breaking without long-range
order at the opening of the pseudogap. Here is demonstrated how their results
could be interpreted to reflect static and dynamic inhomogeneous crystal fields
causing inter-band transfer of holes upon cooling below T*. Possible relevance
to formation of charge carrier inhomogeneities is discussed, and put in
perspective of a proposed quantum chemical understanding of HTS.
