Infrared emission from gravitational wave sources with THESEUS/IRT

TL;DR

This paper discusses the role of THESEUS/IRT in detecting and localizing electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave sources, enhancing multi-messenger astronomy by enabling rapid identification of kilonovae and gamma-ray burst afterglows.

Contribution

It highlights the capabilities of THESEUS/IRT in quickly localizing and identifying optical/NIR emissions from gravitational wave events, advancing multi-messenger observations.

Findings

THESEUS/IRT can localize gamma-ray burst afterglows within minutes.

The instrument can identify optical/NIR kilonova emissions.

Rapid localization improves multi-messenger scientific returns.

Abstract

With the discovery of the electromagnetic counterpart of the gravitational wave source GW170817 the multi-messenger era is started. The identification of an electromagnetic counterpart is crucial to understand the nature of the detected gravitational wave sources and to maximize the scientific return of their detections. The role of the instrument THESEUS/IRT will be crucial in this field, in particular in localizing afterglows of gamma-ray bursts within few minutes from the trigger and in identifying optical/NIR isotropic emissions such as kilonovae.