Professor Hesheng Chen

Senior Fellow of Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study, City University of Hong Kong

Head of Command and Engineering Manager of China Spallation Neutron Source

Co-Director of Joint Laboratory on Neutron Scattering of CityU and CAS

Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Recipient of Helmholtz International Fellow Award

Professor Hesheng Chen

Contact Information

Email: chenhs@ihep.ac.cn
Professor Hesheng Chen is a particle physicist and Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently the Head of Command and Engineering Manager of China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). He was the Director of the Institute of High Energy Physics, President of the High Energy Physics Association of China, and Vice President of the Chinese Physical Society.

Professor Chen is the co-director of a joint laboratory co-established by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and the Institute of High Energy Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The joint laboratory on Neutron Scattering was launched on 27 February 2019, it is the only laboratory in Hong Kong for research into this discipline.

Professor Chen had made major contributions to the discovery of gluon jet and the systematic study of gluon physics in the Mark-J experiment at DESY. He also made important contribution to the precision measurement of the electro-weak parameters and demonstrating the validity of the Standard Model.

He made very important contributions to the design and construction of the hadron calorimeter, and the physics analysis in the L3 experiment at CERN. His work was the key part in determining of the number of neutrino generations and the precision measurement of the electroweak parameters in L3.

He made major contributions to the study of the strategy of the particle physics and high energy accelerator in China. He led the team of the Beijing Electron-Positron Collider (BEPC) and obtained important physics results in the charm energy region, including the precision measurement of R value between 2 to 5 GeV and the discovery of new resonance X1835, which could be a ppbar bound state. He proposed the BEPC upgrade project (BEPCII), which is a double ring collider in the existing tunnel with the luminosity improving by two orders of magnitude for the study of Charm physics. He is the BEPCII projector manager. Under his leadership, the project was finished on schedule and within the budget. The daily integrated luminosity of BEPCII has been increased by factors of more than 100 respectively. The new resonance of Zc (3900), which could be explained as a 4 quark state was discovered recently. The Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiment was designed and constructed under his leadership. The most precision measurement on the neutrino mixing parameter ⊖13 from the experiment determined the future direction of the neutrino physics experiment.

Achievement

  • The project manager of the Beijing Electron Positron Collider Upgrade (BEPCII) (2004-2008). BEPCII finished the construction on schedule within budget, and reached the design specification.
  • Under his leadership, the AMS permanent magnet system was constructed in Beijing, and became the payload of the space shuttle Discovery 1998 as the first large magnet in Space.
  • Worked at the L3 experiment of CERN for the physics proposal and detector design, Monte Carlo simulation and Tau physics, and made contributions to the precision measurements of the Standard Model parameters and the number of the neutrino generations (1982 – present)
  • Worked at Mark-J Experiment of DESY for the gluon jet study and the precision tests of the electroweak theories (1979 to 1984)

Research Grants (past 3 years)

  • The State Commission of Development and Reform, China, “The Project of China Spallation Neutron Source” (RMB 2.2 Billion, 2011-2018)
  • NSFC Key Project, “CMS Physics Analysis” (Project No. 11061140514), (RMB 10 Million, 2012-2016) 
  • CMS, ATLAS, Alice Projects, China (RMB 25 Million, 2013 -2017) 
  • NSFC Key Project, “AMS Physics Experiment” (RMB 3 Million, 2013-2017)

Honors, Awards, Recognitions

  • CAS Outstanding Achievement Award, 1st class (1999)
  • National Science and Technology Award, 2nd Class (2000)
  • Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (2005)
  • CAS Outstanding Achievement Award, 1st class, BEP Collider Project (2011)
  • Helmholtz International Fellow Award (2013) 

Representative Publications (*corresponding author)

  • H. S. Chen*, and X.-L. Wang*, “China's first pulsed neutron source,” Nature Materials, 15, 689 – 691 (2016)
  • Underground laboratory in China, by He-Sheng Chen, Eur. Phys. J. Plus, 127 (2012) 105
  • Prospect of particle physics in China, by He-Sheng Chen, Int. J. Mod. Phys., A23 (2008) 4669-4676.
  • High energy physics. Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference, ICHEP 2004, Beijing, China, August 16-22, 2004. Vol. 1 + 2 by He-Sheng Chen, (ed.), Dong-Sheng Du, (ed.), Wei-Guo Li, (ed.), Cai-Dian Lu, (ed.).
  • Beijing electron positron collider: Results and future plan, by He-Sheng Chen, Mod. Phys. Lett. A18 (2003) 1141-1144.