Ringdown mode amplitudes of charged binary black holes (2509.07111v1)

Abstract: The ringdown phase of the binary black hole (BBH) merger provides a clean and direct probe of strong-field gravity and tests of the nature of black holes. The quasinormal mode (QNM) frequencies in modified gravity theories, as well as their amplitudes and phases, might deviate from the Kerr ones in general relativity. Charged black holes (BHs) in Einstein-Maxwell theory provide an excellent example of a beyond-Kerr solution with direct astrophysical and fundamental physics applications. In this work, we extract the ringdown mode amplitudes and phases for charged BBH mergers based on fully general relativistic simulations with charge-to-mass ratio up to 0.3. Our results suggest that even though the inspiral phase of charged BBHs can be significantly accelerated or decelerated, the ringdown mode excitation only changes mildly. We further explore the charge detectability with the ringdown-only signal for the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer. We find that previous studies may have overestimated the charge detectability and including higher modes in charged waveforms is necessary for future ringdown analysis. This constitutes the first such analysis based on waveforms generated by numerical relativity simulations of charged BHs in full Einstein-Maxwell theory.