2008A&A...485..177H

To investigate candidates for Be/X-ray binaries in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), we observed a region around the emission nebula N19 with XMM-Newton in October 2006. We analysed the EPIC data of the detected point sources to derive their spectral and temporal characteristics. We detected X-ray pulsations with a period of 25.550(2)s from the second-brightest source in the field, which we designate XMMUJ004814.1-731003. The X-ray spectrum is well modelled by a highly absorbed (N_H=5x10²²cm^–2) power-law with photon index 1.33±0.27. The precise X-ray position allows us to identify a Be star as the optical counterpart. XMMUJ004814.1-731003 is located within the error circle of the transient ASCA source AXJ0048.2-7309, but its position is inconsistent with that of the proposed optical counterpart of AXJ0048.2-7309 (the emission line star [MA93]215). It remains unclear if XMMUJ004814.1-731003 is associated with AXJ0048.2-7309. XMMUJ004814.1-731003 might be identical to an RXTE pulsar that was discovered with a period of 25.5s, but which is listed as a 51s pulsar in the recent literature.