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Memoir
Alfred Chi-Tai Wu
Regents' Proceedings 366
Regents' Proceedings 366
Alfred C. T. Wu, Ph.D., professor of physics in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, retired from active faculty status on May 31, 1999.
Professor Wu received his B.S. degree from Wheaton College in 1955 and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland in 1960. From 1960-62, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Professor Wu joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as an assistant professor of physics in 1962 and was promoted to associate professor in 1966 and professor in 1980.
Professor Wu has worked in the area of quantum field theory, particle physics, applications of group theory, and quantum groups. He did the first explicit calculation in closed form of the fourth order scattering amplitude in perturbation theory. Later, by applying the method of stationary phase to the Lorentz group manifold, Professor Wu was able to give a new and concise derivation of the analyticity of the universal singular function in local field theory. On the practical side, Professor Wu has done calculations on the production cross sections of the W bosons from the neutrinos and from the photon. Professor Wu's work on the Yang-Mills gauge field demonstrates the validity of gauge invariance and unitarity of the S-Matrix in the lowest order perturbation theory. Su (3) gauge field equations were studied and ansatz given for the static case. These were done before the non-abelian gauge theory became fashionable. Professor Wu's work on the structure of the Wigner 9j coefficients in the quantum theory of angular momentum makes the full 72 element symmetry manifest and gives a new explicit expression for the 9j coefficient. Internal symmetry (such as isospin) was usually considered extraneous to the CPT invariance. Professor Wu has found, however, the isospin modification of the CPT theorem in nonabelian gauge theories where there is spin from isospin (e.g., in monopole and Skyrme soliton models).
Professor Wu was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1968-69. He was the organizer of the Ta-You Wu Symposium in Physics in 1991 and chair of the Ta-You Wu Lecture Committee from 1992-98.
The Regents now salute this faculty member by naming Alfred C-T. Wu professor emeritus of physics.