• Accepted Paper

Impact of the Einstein Telescope’s duty cycle on the estimation of binary black hole parameters

Luca Negri, Thomas C. K. Ng, Thibeau Wouters, Tim J. Kuhlbusch, Harsh Narola, Robin Chan, Kailib Ryan Doney, Francesco Cireddu, Isaac C. F. Wong, Fabian Gittins, Peter T. H. Pang, Anuradha Samajdar, Achim Stahl, Justin Janquart, Chris Van Den Broeck, and Tjonnie G. F. Li

Phys. Rev. D - Accepted 11 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1zg7-sd8v

Abstract

The geometry of the Einstein Telescope, the proposed next-generation European gravitational-wave observatory, is yet to be finalized. Two competing designs are under consideration: a nested triangular configuration (ET-Δ) and two separated L-shaped detectors (ET-2L). Extensive prior comparisons of ET designs established the scientific landscape using the Fisher-information-matrix formalism and identified that duty-cycle-induced single-detector operation is precisely the regime where this approximation becomes less reliable, underscoring the need for a , principled treatment of the duty cycle. In this manuscript, we build on that foundation by revisiting the comparison with full Bayesian parameter estimation of gravitational-wave signals from binary black-hole mergers, projected onto a simulated Einstein Telescope that incorporates a duty cycle modelled via continuous-time Markov chains and testing different detector maintenance strategies. We find that the redundancy inherent in the ET-Δ design enables it to maintain at least two operational for the majority of the observing time, whereas the ET-2L configuration is often limited to a single . Crucially, we show that the increased multi-detector uptime translates into tighter constraints on the luminosity distance and source-frame component masses. Notably, this remains true even when gravitational-wave events have a lower signal-to-noise ratio in ET-Δ than in ET-2L.

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