Laughlin liquid to charge-density-wave transition at high Landau levels

We compare the energies of the Laughlin liquid and a charge density wave in a weak magnetic field for the upper Landau-level filling factors nu(N)=1/3 and 1/5. The charge-density-wave period has been optimized and was found to be similar or equal to 3.3R(c), where R-c is the cyclotron radius. We conclude that the optimal charge density wave is lower in energy than the Laughlin liquid for the Landau-level numbers N greater than or equal to 2 at nu(N)=1/3 and for N greater than or equal to 3 at nu(N)=1/5. This implies that the 1/3 quantum Hall plateaus cannot be observed for N greater than or equal to 2, in agreement with the experiment.