First few overtones probe the event horizon geometry

It is broadly believed that quasinormal modes cannot tell the black-hole near-horizon geometry, because usually the low-lying modes are determined by the scattering of perturbations around the peak of the effective potential. Using the general parametrization of the black-hole spacetimes respecting the generic post-Newtonian asymptotic, we will show that tiny modifications of the Schwarzschild/Kerr geometry in a relatively small region near the event horizon lead to almost the same Schwarzschild/Kerr fundamental mode, but totally different first few overtones. Having in mind that the first several overtones affect the quasinormal ringing at its early and intermediate stage (Giesler et al., 2019), we argue that the near-horizon geometry could in principle be studied via the first few overtones of the quasinormal spectrum, which is important because corrections to the Einstein theory must modify precisely the near-horizon geometry, keeping the known weak field regime.