On the ease of excitation of black hole ringing: Quantifying the importance of overtones by the excitation factors

Abstract: The excitation factors of black hole quasinormal modes quantify the $\textit{ease of excitation}$ of the quasinormal modes and are independent of the source of perturbation. We compute the excitation factors of Kerr black holes up to the 20th overtone and find that the 4th, 5th, and 6th overtones have the first three highest excitation factors for intermediate and high spin parameters. This provides an independent confirmation of the importance of overtones that has been confirmed by the fitting data analysis of numerical relativity waveforms beginning around the strain peak amplitude.