Herbert H. Chen

Herbert Hwa-sen Chen (Chinese: 陈华生) (March 16, 1942 – November 7, 1987) was a Chinese-born American theoretical and experimental physicist at University of California, Irvine known for his contributions in the field of neutrino detection. Chen's work on observations of elastic neutrino-electron scattering provided important experimental support for the electroweak theory of the Standard Model of particle physics. In 1984 Chen realized that the deuterium of heavy water could be used as a detector that would distinguish the flavors of solar neutrinos. This idea led Chen to develop plans for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory that would eventually make fundamental measurements demonstrating that neutrinos were particles with mass.