The Potential of the THESEUS Mission for Studies of Young Stellar Objects

Abstract

THESEUS is a proposed ESA M-class mission primarily designed for high-redshift gamma-ray burst studies, but its wide-field survey strategy and multi-instrument payload also offer significant opportunities for time-domain investigations of Galactic young stellar objects (YSOs). We assess the mission’s potential for YSO science by examining the detectability of energetic X-ray flares, the observability of Galactic star-forming regions, and the benefits of coordinated soft X-ray and near-infrared observations. Instrument characteristics are combined with literature-based YSO population estimates and Orion-derived flare statistics. SXI exposure maps are used to estimate region-dependent cumulative temporal coverage, while IRT crowding is characterized through nearest-neighbor separations relative to the expected EE50 and EE80 angular scales. The detailed distribution of the cumulative SXI exposure among individual observing intervals is not yet specified and is therefore treated separately as a temporal-sampling uncertainty, while additional sensitivity tests quantify the effects of flare duration and X-ray absorption. Using Orion as a benchmark, we derive comparative, model-dependent estimates indicating that THESEUS may detect substantial samples of energetic YSO flares during its nominal mission lifetime. A substantial fraction of sources are expected to have nearest-neighbor separations larger than the adopted IRT EE-based angular scales even in crowded regions, although unique source identification from SXI data alone may be challenging. THESEUS can therefore serve both as a transient discovery instrument and as a statistical probe of YSO high-energy variability.