The first 20 minutes in the Hong Kong stock market

Based on the minute-by-minute data of the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong and the analysis of probability distribution and autocorrelations, we find that the index fluctuations for the first few minutes of daily opening show behaviors very different from those of the other times. In particular, the properties of tail distribution, which will show the power law scaling with exponent about -4 or an exponential-type decay, the volatility, and its correlations depend on the opening effect of each trading day.Comment: 9 pages with 6 figures; Proceedings of international workshop on "Economic Dynamics from the Physics Point of View", Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, Germany, 27 - 30 March, and to appear in Physica

Self-organized model for information spread in financial markets

A self-organized model with social percolation process is proposed to describe the propagations of information for different trading ways across a social system and the automatic formation of various groups within market traders. Based on the market structure of this model, some stylized observations of real market can be reproduced, including the slow decay of volatility correlations, and the fat tail distribution of price returns which is found to cross over to an exponential-type asymptotic decay in different dimensional systems.Comment: 8 pages with 7 EPS figures, LaTeX2e with EPJ class; Eur. Phys. J. B, in pres

A Unified View of Topological Phase Transition in Band Theory

We develop a unified view of topological phase transitions (TPTs) in solids by revising the classical band theory with the inclusion of topology. Re-evaluating the band evolution from an "atomic crystal" [a normal insulator (NI)] to a solid crystal, such as a semiconductor, we demonstrate that there exists ubiquitously an intermediate phase of topological insulator (TI), whose critical transition point displays a linear scaling between electron hopping potential and average bond length, underlined by deformation-potential theory. The validity of the scaling relation is verified in various two-dimensional (2D) lattices regardless of lattice symmetry, periodicity, and form of electron hoppings, based on a generic tight-binding model. Significantly, this linear scaling is shown to set an upper bound for the degree of structural disorder to destroy the topological order in a crystalline solid, as exemplified by formation of vacancies and thermal disorder. Our work formulates a simple framework for understanding the physical nature of TPTs with significant implications in practical applications of topological materials.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure