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Faculty - Hontas Farmer

Education BS Northern Illinois University MS DePaul University

Hobbies Gaming, Dancing, Working Out, and Gardening

 

Research Interest

I am a member of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Fundamental Physics Working Group. LISA will build on the work of ground-based observatories that use test masses and lasers to measure tiny changes in distance. These changes result from variations in the curvature of spacetime, induced when one massive object interacts with and spirals into another.

My research interests within this framework focus on how LISA can observe Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals (EMRIs), and how those observations can be used to test extensions of General Relativity. EMRIs are especially useful for this purpose because, when a stellar-mass black hole (typically 4–8 solar masses) spirals into a supermassive black hole (ranging from millions to billions of solar masses), the smaller object can be modeled effectively as a test particle. This allows us to compute the dynamics with high precision and detect subtle deviations in the emitted gravitational waves. Such deviations from Einstein’s theory could reshape our understanding of the large-scale structure of the universe and the physics of the early, near–Big Bang epoch.

Selected Publications

Full record available at

Books

Problems and Solutions to Accompany University Physics

University Science Books

2025-08-01 | Book | Writing - original draft

ISBN:

Contributors: Ricardo Rodriguez; Hontas Freeman Farmer

Papers

New horizons for fundamental physics with LISA

Living Reviews in Relativity

2022-12 | Journal article

DOI:

Prospects for Fundamental Physics with LISA

2020-01-27 | Preprint

DOI:

BIBCODE:

ARXIV:

Part of ARXIV:

Disk-Outflow Models as Applied to High Mass Star Forming Regions through Methanol and Water Maser Observations.

International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics

2014-11-18 | Journal article

DOI: 

VizieR Online Data Catalog: Methanol masers in HII regions (Farmer, 2014)

VizieR Online Data Catalog (other)

2014-11 | Interactive resource

OTHER-ID: 

BIBCODE:

Conferences

Formal Unification of Gravity and Particle Physics in Lagrangian Euclidean Space with Experimental Predictions

APS April Meeting Abstracts 2019 | Conference abstract

BIBCODE:

Contributors: Farmer, Hontas

Quantum Gravity, May Not Be The Right Question.

APS April Meeting Abstracts

2017-01 | Conference abstract

BIBCODE:

Contributors: Farmer, Hontas

Dark matter as an integral part of an alternative gravity model

Bulletin of the American Physical Society

2014-04-07 | Conference abstract

DOI:

BIBCODE:

Representative Grants and Funding

Working on that. To be honest working at the community colleges that has not been an expected part of the job. 

Memberships

American Physical Society.

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna Consortium

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