CentralNotice From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search For other uses of the terms Q , Q factor , and Quality factor , see Q value (disambiguation) . The bandwidth , , or f 1 to f 2 , of a damped oscillator is shown on a graph of energy versus frequency. The Q factor of the damped oscillator, or filter, is . The higher the Q, the narrower and 'sharper' the peak is. In physics and engineering the quality factor or Q factor is a dimensionless parameter that describes how under-damped an oscillator or resonator is, [ 1 ] as well as characterizes a resonator's bandwidth relative to its center frequency. [ 2 ] Higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy loss relative to the stored energy of the resonator; the oscillations die out more slowly. A pendulum suspended from a high-quality bearing, oscillating in air, has a high Q , while a pendulum im...