GRB follow-up and science with THESEUS/IRT

Abstract

The aim of the space mission concept THESEUS is to continue to collect and study the GRB events like Swift. It will allow us to study the early Universe. Moreover, it will offer us to study with unprecedented sensitivity GRB emission and to measure the redshift for the bursts with z>5. In this work, we investigate the advantages of a optical and near-infrared telescope mounted on the same satellite that is triggered by the GRB like THESEUS/IRT. Afterwards, we investigate the possible future developments in the GRB science, first for the prompt phase and the for afterglow phase. We find that more than half of the sources detected by THESEUS, and will never be visible from a a ground-based telescope. Moreover, only ∼50% of all observable sources are visible within one hour, i.e. <30% of all THESEUS transient sources. A higher number of observable sources can only be achieved with a network of telescopes. THESEUS will permit to detect the NIR prompt phase of the longest GRBs, increasing the number of events studied from gamma-rays to the near-infrared from a handful of events studied up to now to ≳10 GRBs per year.