2026/07/20 by Diego Gotz, Aline Meuris, Eric Doumayrou +28
#astro-ph.IM
We present the Infra-Red Telescope (IRT), which is part of the payload of the THESEUS mission, one on the three phase A candidate missions for the M7 slot of ESA (launch date 2037). The IRT is a 0.7 m class telescope with an off-axis Korsch optical design, with imaging capabilities in the 0.7-1.8 microns range over a 15 x 15 arc min field of view. The IRT also provides slit-less low resolution spectroscopy (R~400) over a limited field of view of 2 x 2 arc min, in the 0.8-1.6 microns range. The goal of the IRT is to identify the near infrared counterparts to the Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) detected by the two other telescopes on board THESEUS (the XGIS and the SXI), and to measure on board its photometric redshift in near real-time. The position and the redshift will be transmitted immediately to ground to allow for deeper follow-up by the large telescopes (ELT, VLT, ...). If the source is bright enough, spectroscopy will be performed to characterize the GRB environment.