The link between short Gamma-ray bursts and Gravitational Waves: perspectives for the THESEUS mission

TL;DR

This paper discusses the connection between short Gamma-Ray Bursts and gravitational waves, highlighting recent discoveries like GW170817, and explores how the THESEUS mission can advance multi-messenger astronomy.

Contribution

It reviews recent observational evidence linking short GRBs to neutron star mergers and emphasizes the potential role of the THESEUS mission in future multi-messenger studies.

Findings

GW170817 confirmed neutron star mergers produce short GRBs.

Short GRBs are promising sources for gravitational wave detection.

THESEUS will enhance multi-messenger observations with rapid response capabilities.

Abstract

The knowledge of the class of short Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), characterised by a duration of the gamma-ray emission $\leq 2$ s, experienced an impressive boost in the last decade. In particular, the discovery of short GRB afterglows in 2005 with Swift and HETE-II provided the first insight into their energy scale, environments and host galaxies. The lack of detection of associated supernovae proved that they are not related to the death of massive stars. The increasing evidence for compact object binary progenitors makes short GRBs one of the most promising sources of gravitational waves for the forthcoming Advanced LIGO/Virgo science runs. To this end, the spectacular detection of the first electromagnetic counterpart of the gravitational wave event GW\,170817 originated by the coalescence of a double neutron star (NS) system, represents a first hystorical milestone. The (weak) short GRB\,170817A associated to this GW event provided the long-sought evidence that at least a fraction of short GRBs are originated by NS-NS merging and suggested the intriguing possibility that relativistic jets can be launched in the process of a NS-NS merger. The THESEUS mission, thanks to the diversity of intstrumentation, fast pointing and flexible schedule will represent a key facility in the multi-messenger astronomy era.