Academia
I have published articles in a number of fields, including theoretical optics and computational general relativity, as well as orbital mechanics, exohydrology, and high dimensional optimization. I am committed to open access publishing practices.
I am often asked for advice by prospective students about academia, Caltech, physics, studying in the US, and so on. During the Christmas holiday in 2017 I wrote a Grad School Survival Guide collating a lot of my thoughts on this issue. It's now available on Amazon.
My Google Scholar profile has a good summary of my papers and associated stats.
Optics 2008-2010
My undergraduate research within the Center for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices and Optical Systems (CUDOS) at the University of Sydney resulted in three papers, a thesis, and the university medal. This work focused on optimizing optical gratings to blaze energy into evanescent orders, potentially applicable to sub-wavelength optical microscopy or low reflectance coatings. Any of the links will take you to a copy of the article.
Handmer, C J et al. Stacked dielectric gratings for sub-wavelength surface field synthesis. JOSA B, Vol. 27 Issue 12, pp. 2580-2594 (2010)
Handmer, C J et al. Blazing evanescent grating orders: a spectral approach to beating the Rayleigh limit. Optics Letters, Vol. 35 Issue 17, pp 2846-2848 (2010)
Sukhorukov, Andrey A; Handmer, C J; de Sterke, C M; Steel, M J. Slow light with flat or offset band edges in few-mode fiber with two gratings. Optics Express, Vol. 15 Issue 26, pp. 17954-17959 (2007) arXiv:0711.1403
General Relativity 2010-2015
I did my PhD in the Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity (TAPIR) group at Caltech. With Mark Scheel and Bela Szilagyi, I built a number of new capabilities for SpEC, including Fourier continuation, spin weighted spherical harmonics, indefinite integration, and spectral Cauchy characteristic extraction. Most of this is done in full OO/c++, though with enough quirks to keep me on my toes. My PhD resulted in 3 papers, links below. I developed a robust, efficient and very efficient algorithm for extracting gravitational radiation from simulations of compact binaries. In a display of exquisite timing, my last day at Caltech was September 14, 2015 - the same day gravitational radiation was directly detected for the first time with LIGO. My PhD defense is on YouTube, and the thesis itself has a nice general introduction to the field.
Handmer, C J, B Szilagyi and J Winicour. Spectral Cauchy Characteristic Extraction of strain, news and gravitational radiation flux. Classical and Quantum Gravity 33 225007. arXiv:1605.04332
Handmer, C J, B Szilagyi and J Winicour. Gauge Invariant Spectral Cauchy Characteristic Extraction. Classical And Quantum Gravity 32 235018 (2015). arXiv:1502.06987
Handmer, C J and B Szilagyi. Spectral Characteristic Evolution: A New Algorithm for Gravitational Wave Propagation. Classical And Quantum Gravity 32 025008 (2014) arXiv:1406.7029
This video is an example of the sort of thing TAPIR does.
Other stuff 2013-Present
Research outside my primary fields includes these technical papers, which are either too wild or too new to have been subjected to peer review. Somewhat ironically, they generated more media interest than my main research. I am always happy to consider collaborations on these or related topics. Other projects which haven't produced technical papers are included in the Projects section of this website.
Handmer, C J. How to get to Earth from Mars: Solving the hard part first (minor revisions ongoing).
Handmer, C J. Waterfront on the Martian Planitia: Algorithmic emergent catchments on disordered terrain. Submitted: Icarus. arXiv:1606.05224
Roa, J and C J Handmer. Quantifying hazards: asteroid disruption in lunar distant retrograde orbits. arXiv:1505.03800
Handmer, C J. Genetic optimization of the Hyperloop route through the Grapevine. arXiv:1503.01524
Ceremonial Positions
In 2013 I was honored to become the custodian of the sacred rites of Öcsi Bácsi.