IceCube AGN Neutrino Source Candidate PKS 2233-148: Peculiar Observed Properties & Possible Gravitational Lensing Signatures

Clicks: 4
ID: 323141
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal

Ranked #96 of 892 articles by views in monthly notices of the royal astronomical society

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 892 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract PKS 2233-148, the hottest spot in the southern hemisphere in IceCube neutrino detections, qualifies as one of the best objects to analyze the physical mechanisms involved. So far, only an upper limit for the redshift was known. We detect the neutral Fe Kα line (6.4 keV at rest frame) of the reflection component in the X-ray spectrum of Swift-XRT observations with 3.1σ significance and determine the so far unknown redshift to be z = 0.63 ± 0.04. We find a displacement of the jet and sudden offset emission from the jet ridge line in 15 GHz VLBA observations. The correlated multi-wavelength (radio - γ-rays) variability of PKS 2233-148 reveals strong and almost achromatic flaring which seems superimposed by at least one particularly fast ”flash” of flaring. A detailed analysis reveals the superposition of two flaring processes on very different timescales. The flare morphology, Bayesian model comparison, PSD behavior, and simplified lensing calculations indicate that several physically plausible scenarios remain viable. Assuming a microlensing origin, the mass derived for the ”fast” γ-ray flash is of the order of 10−8M⊙ and might result from gravitational lensing of a dark matter substructure. A similar ”fast” γ-ray flash coincides with the sudden offset jet emission seen in the VLBA observations. Delensing reconstruction maps the observed jet components into a more ordered and substantially straighter source-plane structure with a modest reduction in the reconstructed flux-density variability. PKS 2233-148 is the third IceCube neutrino emitting blazar counterpart, with gravitational lensing signatures and the first counterpart, with potential signatures for Dark matter substructure lensing.
Reference Key
openalex_W7172001699 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors S Britzen, A B Kovačević, L Č Popović, Emma Kun, M Zajaček, F Jaron, T Plšek, I. N. Pashchenko, R Pánis, Z Stuchlík, A Tursunov
Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1355
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1355
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.