"Experimental Observation of a Heavy Particle J," Phys. Rev. Lett. 33: 1404 (1974), with J.J. Aubert, U. Becker, P.J. Biggs, J. Burger, M. Chen, G. Everhart, P. Goldhagen, J. Leong, T. McCorriston, T.G. Rhoades, M. Rohde, S.C.C. Ting.

Discovery of the J/ particle which is a bound state of charm and anticharm quarks. This discovery wa an important step leading to understanding of the fundamental structure of matter in terms of leptons and quarks.

Important analysis enabling identification of gluon jet events which are fundamental processes in quantum chromodynamics. This method was used in the following publication.

Events are explained by e⁺ e^- annihilation into a quark-antiquark pair with radiation of a gluon - gluon radiation is a fundamental process of quantum chromodynamics (QCD).  For a detailed explanation see "The First Evidence for Three-jet Events in e⁺ e^- Collisions at Petra - First Direct Observation of the Gluon," Proceedings of the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, 1995, Brussels, Belgium. This was a talk given by Professor Wu at the award to her and Paul Söding, Björn Wiik, and Günter Wolf of the 1995 European Physical Society High Energy and Particle Physics Prize.

Determination that the number of light neutrino species is three.

Discovery of baryon composed of d,  s, and b quarks - the Lambda_b.

First discovery by the Wisconsin Group of Sau Lan Wu in the ALEPH collaboration of the B_s meson by direct observation.

Outstanding Junior Investigator Award of U.S. Department of Energy, 1980
Romnes Faculty Award, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1981
Hilldale Professorship, University of Wisconsin, Madison 1991
Fellow, American Physical Society 1992
High Energy and Particle Physics Prize of the European Physical Society 1995, with Paul Söding, Björn Wiik, and Günter Wolf:

1970-72 Research Associate, Physics Department, MIT
1972-77 Research Physicist, Physics Department, MIT
1975-77 Visiting Scientist, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
1977-80 Assistant Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1977-86 Visiting Scientist, DESY, Hamburg, West Germany
1980-83 Associate Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1983-      Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1986-      Visiting Scientist, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
1990-      Enrico Fermi Distinguished Professor of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison

B.A. Vassar College 1963
M.A. Harvard University 1964
Ph.D. Harvard University 1970

Sources:

Jane Nachtman and Sau Lan Wu

For her description of her research interests click here

See the ALEPH detector at CERN.

Up to 1998, twenty-four graduate students have obtained Ph.D. degrees under the supervision of Professor Wu. Click here for her homepage with their names.

Sau Lan Wu is married to Professor T. T. Wu of Harvard University.

Field Editor: Sau Lan Wu/Nina Byers