School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Enrico Bozzo
Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, 1205 Versoix, Switzerland
Diego Götz
Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Astrophysics, Instrumentation-Modeling, Université Paris Saclay, F-91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Paul O’Brien
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Andrea Santangelo
Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Abteilung Hochenergieastrophysik, Kepler Center for Astro and Particle Physics, Eberhard Karls Universitat, Sand 1, D 72076 Tuebingen, Germany
The mission concept THESEUS (Transient High Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor) aims at exploiting Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) to explore the early Universe, as well as becoming a cornerstone of multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics. To achieve these goals, a key feature is the capability to survey the soft X-ray transient sky and to detect the faint and soft GRB population so far poorly explored. Among the expected transients there will be high-redshift GRBs, nearby low-luminosity, X-ray Flashes and short GRBs. Our understanding of the physics governing the GRB prompt emission will benefit from the 0.3 keV–10 MeV simultaneous observations for an unprecedented large number of hundreds of events per year. In particular the mission will provide the identification, accurate sky localisation and characterization of electromagnetic counterparts to sources of gravitational wave and neutrino sources, which will be routinely detected during the 2030s by the upgraded second generation and third generation Gravitational Wave (GW) interferometers and next generation neutrino detectors.
