The IRT Telescope on board the THESEUS mission

Diego Gotz; Aline Meuris; Eric Doumayrou; Dehbia Lattab; Frederic Pinsard; Samuel Ronayette; Thierry Tourrette; Herni Triou; Bortolino Saggin; Marco Giovanni Corti; Stefano Covino; Fabrizio Fornasiero; Luca Oggioni; Luca Terenzi; Stephane Basa; Enrico Bozzo; Ludovic Genolet; Lauro Conti; Mariachiara Celato; Paul Hedderman; Shaymaa Hussein; Christoph Tenzer; Karine Mercier; Lander Ruiz de Ocenda; Jean-Michel Le Duigou; Adrien Fort; Florent Robinet; Andras Peter Joo; Rebeka Kiss; Bendeguz Koncz; L. Viktor Toth

arXiv · 2607.17681

The IRT Telescope on board the THESEUS mission

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Abstract

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.

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Diego Gotz, Aline Meuris, Eric Doumayrou, Dehbia Lattab, Frederic Pinsard, Samuel Ronayette, Thierry Tourrette, Herni Triou, Bortolino Saggin, Marco Giovanni Corti, Stefano Covino, Fabrizio Fornasiero, Luca Oggioni, Luca Terenzi, Stephane Basa, Enrico Bozzo, Ludovic Genolet, Lauro Conti, Mariachiara Celato, Paul Hedderman, Shaymaa Hussein, Christoph Tenzer, Karine Mercier, Lander Ruiz de Ocenda, Jean-Michel Le Duigou, Adrien Fort, Florent Robinet, Andras Peter Joo, Rebeka Kiss, Bendeguz Koncz, L. Viktor Toth. 2026-07-20. The IRT Telescope on board the THESEUS mission. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.17681

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