{{Short description|Taiwanese-American physicist}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Alexander Wu Chao | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|July 2, 1949}} | birth_place = Taiwan | death_date = | death_place = | residence = | citizenship = | ethnicity = | fields = Physics | workplaces = Stanford University | alma_mater = National Tsing Hua University (BS)<br />Stony Brook University (PhD) | thesis_title = The Geometric Picture in High Energy Collisions | thesis_year = 1974 | doctoral_advisor = Yang Chen-Ning | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = Research on accelerator physics and beam-beam interactions | awards = | religion = | signature = | footnotes = }} '''Alexander Wu Chao''' (born July 2, 1949)<ref>biographical information from ''American Men and Women of Science'', Thomson Gale 2004</ref> is a Taiwanese-American physicist, specializing in accelerator physics.
==Education and career== Chao was born in Taiwan. He graduated in 1970 with a B.S. in physics from Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University.<ref name=SLAC>{{cite web|title=Alexander Wu Chao, Professor|website=SLAC, Stanford University|url=https://www.slac.stanford.edu/~achao/}}</ref> He received in 1974 his Ph.D. in physics from the University of New York at Stony Brook, where his doctoral advisor was C. N. Yang.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alexander Chao (interviewed by David Zierler)|website=Oral Histories, American Institute of Physics|date=24 September 2021|url=https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/45282}}</ref> At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Chao was a research associate from 1974 to 1976, an experimental physicist from 1976 to 1982, and the group leader of the Beam Dynamics Group from 1982 to 1984. From 1984 to 1989 he was the division head of the Accelerator Physics Division of the Central Design Group of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) project at Berkeley, California. In 1989 when construction of the SSC started, he moved to Texas, where from 1989 to 1993 he held a joint appointment as a scientist at the SSC Laboratory and as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas, Austin. When the U.S. Congress cancelled the SSC project in 1993, Chao returned to SLAC as a full professor at Stanford University. At SLAC of Stanford he was a full professor from 1993 to 2017, when he retired as professor emeritus. He has been from 2011 to the present a chair professor at National Tsinghua University in Taiwan and from 2016 to the present a distinguished visiting professor at Tsinghua University in China.<ref name=SLAC/>
Chao's research on accelerator physics and beam-beam interactions, include "collective instability theory for intense charged-particle beams, nonlinear dynamics of particle motion in accelerators, spin dynamics, laser-particle interaction, and physics of coherent radiation sources."<ref name=WilsonPrize>{{cite web|title= 2018 Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators, Alexander Wu Chao|website=American Physical Society|url=https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient.cfm?last_nm=Chao&first_nm=Alexander&year=2018}}</ref> He was involved in the development of important accelerator projects at SLAC, including the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC),<ref>{{cite journal|website=OSTI.GOV, U.S. Department of Energy|doi=10.2172/6253034|title=Vibrational modes of the pedestal support system for the SLC Arc magnets|year=1984|last1=Weng|first1=W.T.|last2=Chao|first2=A.W.|osti=6253034 |url=https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6253034-PK4O8G/|doi-access=free|citeseerx=10.1.1.514.2503}}</ref> PEP,<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.2172/6521593|title=Transverse instability excited by rf deflecting modes for PEP|year=1979|last1=Chao|first1=A.W.|last2=Yao|first2=C.Y.|website=UNT Digital Library|url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1203235/|doi-access=free}}</ref> and SPEAR.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Chao, A. W.|author2=Gareyte, J.|year=1990|title=Scaling law for bunch lengthening in SPEAR II|journal=Particle Accelerators|volume=25|pages=229–234|url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/210836/files/p229.pdf}}</ref>
He was one of the founders of the Overseas Chinese Physics Association (OCAP) Accelerator School (held in Taiwan, China, and Singapore), which was first held in 1998 in Taiwan.<ref>{{cite web|title=Alex Chao — an Influential and Dedicated Educator|website=October 25, 2019, Alex Chao Symposium, SLAC|url=https://conf.slac.stanford.edu/alexchaosymposium/sites/alexchaosymposium.conf.slac.stanford.edu/files/A2%20Weiren%20Chou.pdf}}</ref>
Chao was elected in 1989 a Fellow of the American Physical Society and in 2002 an Academician of Academia Sinica, Taiwan.<ref name=SLAC/> He received in 2008 the Rolf Wideroe Prize of the European Physical Society,<ref>{{cite web|title=EPS Accelerator Group Prize Winners|website=European Physical Society|url=https://www.eps.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=85227&id=143770}}</ref> in 2016 the U.S. Particle Accelerator School Achievement Prize,<ref>{{cite web|title=USPAS Prize Recipients|website=U.S. Particle Accelerator School|url=https://uspas.fnal.gov/about/prize/prize-winners.shtml}}</ref> and in 2017 the Robert R. Wilson Prize of the American Physical Society.<ref name=WilsonPrize/>
==Selected publications== ===Articles=== * {{cite journal|author=Chao, A. W.|author2=Yang, C. N.|year=1973|title=Opaqueness of pp collisions from 30 to 1500 GeV/c|journal=Physical Review D|volume=8|issue=7|pages= 2063–267|doi=10.1103/PhysRevD.8.2063|bibcode=1973PhRvD...8.2063C }} * {{cite journal|doi=10.1063/1.326070|title=Evaluation of beam distribution parameters in an electron storage ring|year=1979|last1=Chao|first1=Alexander W.|journal=Journal of Applied Physics|volume=50|issue=2|pages=595–598|bibcode=1979JAP....50..595C |osti=1446930}} * {{cite journal|doi=10.1016/0029-554X(80)90851-4|title=Beam emittance growth caused by transverse deflecting fields in a linear accelerator|year=1980|last1=Chao|first1=Alexander W.|last2=Richter|first2=Burton|author-link2=Burton Richter|last3=Yao|first3=Chi-Yuan|journal=Nuclear Instruments and Methods|volume=178|issue=1 |pages=1–8|bibcode=1980NucIM.178....1C |osti=1445579|url=https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1445579}} * {{cite journal|author=Ruth, R. D.|author2=Chao, A. W.|author3=Wilson, P. B.|author4=Morton, P. L.|year=1984|title=A plasma wake field accelerator|journal=Particle Accelerators|volume=17 (SLAC-PUB-3374)|pages=171–189|url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/157249/files/p171.pdf}} * {{cite journal|author=Meller, R. E.|author2=Chao, A. W.|author3=Peterson, J. M.|author4=Peggs, S. G.|author5=Furman, M.|year=1987|title=Decoherence of kicked beams|journal=SSC-N-360 (Superconducting Super Collider, Report Number N-360|url=https://lss.fnal.gov/archive/other/ssc/ssc-n-360.pdf}} (16 pages) * {{cite journal|doi=10.1103/PhysRevE.48.4678|title=Experimental determination of the Hamiltonian for synchrotron motion with rf phase modulation|year=1993|last1=Huang|first1=H.|last2=Ball|first2=M.|last3=Brabson|first3=B.|last4=Budnick|first4=J.|last5=Caussyn|first5=D. D.|last6=Chao|first6=A. W.|last7=Collins|first7=J.|last8=Derenchuk|first8=V.|last9=Dutt|first9=S.|last10=East|first10=G.|last11=Ellison|first11=M.|last12=Friesel|first12=D.|last13=Hamilton|first13=B.|last14=Jones|first14=W. P.|last15=Lee|first15=S. Y.|last16=Li|first16=D.|last17=Minty|first17=M. G.|last18=Nagaitsev|first18=S.|last19=Ng|first19=K. Y.|last20=Pei|first20=X.|last21=Riabko|first21=A.|last22=Sloan|first22=T.|last23=Syphers|first23=M.|last24=Teng|first24=L.|last25=Wang|first25=Y.|last26=Yan|first26=Y. T.|last27=Zhang|first27=P. L.|journal=Physical Review E|volume=48|issue=6|pages=4678–4688|pmid=9961152|bibcode=1993PhRvE..48.4678H |osti=1441445|url=https://www.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/getdoc/slac-pub-10048.pdf}} * {{cite book|author=Chao, A. W.|year=2002|title=Lecture notes on topics in accelerator physics (No. SLAC-PUB-9574)|publisher=SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)|url=https://wiki.jlab.org/ciswiki/images/f/f2/Alex_Chao_Lecture_Notes.pdf}} (17 pages) * {{cite journal|doi=10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.12.104201|title=Gravitational instability of a nonrotating galaxy|year=2009|last1=Chao|first1=Alexander W.|journal=Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams|volume=12|issue=10|article-number=104201 |bibcode=2009PhRvS..12j4201C |doi-access=free|citeseerx=10.1.1.410.4080}} * {{cite journal|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.154801|title=Steady-State Microbunching in a Storage Ring for Generating Coherent Radiation|year=2010|last1=Ratner|first1=Daniel F.|last2=Chao|first2=Alexander W.|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=105|issue=15|article-number=154801|pmid=21230912|bibcode=2010PhRvL.105o4801R |osti=1014130 |url=https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1014130}} * {{cite journal|doi=10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.15.050704|title=Modeling and multidimensional optimization of a tapered free electron laser|year=2012|last1=Jiao|first1=Y.|last2=Wu|first2=J.|last3=Cai|first3=Y.|last4=Chao|first4=A. W.|last5=Fawley|first5=W. M.|last6=Frisch|first6=J.|last7=Huang|first7=Z.|last8=Nuhn|first8=H.-D.|last9=Pellegrini|first9=C.|last10=Reiche|first10=S.|journal=Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams|volume=15|issue=5|article-number=050704 |bibcode=2012PhRvS..15e0704J |s2cid=120606215 |doi-access=free|url=https://www.dora.lib4ri.ch/psi/islandora/object/psi%3A11919/datastream/PDF/Jiao-2012-Modeling_and_multidimensional_optimization_of-%28published_version%29.pdf}}
===Books=== * {{cite book|author=Chao, Alex|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MjRoQgAACAAJ|isbn = 978-0-471-55184-3|title = Physics of Collective Beam Instabilities in High Energy Accelerators|date = 24 May 1993|publisher = Wiley}} * {{cite book|editor=Chao, Alexander Wu|editor2=Tigner, Maury|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z3J4SjftF1YC|isbn = 978-981-02-3500-0|title = Handbook of Accelerator Physics and Engineering|year = 1999|publisher = World Scientific}} * {{cite book|editor=Chao, Alexander W.|editor2=Chou, Weiren|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gj4cOFvFhvgC|isbn = 978-981-4299-35-0|title = Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology: Volume 2: Medical applications of accelerators|year = 2009|publisher = World Scientific}} * {{cite book|author=Chao, Alexander Wu|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kSgEEAAAQBAJ|isbn = 978-981-12-2675-5|title = Lectures on Accelerator Physics|date = 14 October 2020|publisher = World Scientific}}
==References== <references/>
== External links ==
* [https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/45282 Interview of Alexander Chao by David Zierler on 2020 October 8, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA] {{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chao, Alexander Wu}} Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:Accelerator physicists Category:20th-century American physicists Category:21st-century American physicists Category:Taiwanese emigrants to the United States Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society Category:Members of Academia Sinica Category:National Tsing Hua University alumni Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Stony Brook University alumni Category:20th-century Taiwanese physicists Category:21st-century Taiwanese physicists Category:SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory faculty Category:American scientists of Asian descent