Based on XMM-Newton EPIC data of four pointings towards the Small Magellanic Cloud ( SMC ) , results on timing and spectral analyses of 16 known high mass X-ray binaries ( HMXBs ) and HMXB candidates in the SMC are presented .
We confirm the pulse periods of four sources which were known to show pulsations .
In addition , two new X-ray pulsars are discovered : XMMU J005605.2–722200 with P _ { pulse } = 140.1 \pm 0.3 s and RX J0057.8–7207 with P _ { pulse } = 152.34 \pm 0.05 s. Due to the low Galactic foreground absorption , X-ray binary systems in the Magellanic Clouds are well suited for studies of the soft component in their X-ray spectrum .
Spectral analysis reveals soft emission besides a power law component in the spectra of three sources .
The existence of emission lines in at least one of them corroborates the thermal nature of this emission with temperatures of 0.2 – 0.3 keV and heavy element abundances lower than solar .
For the HMXB SMC X-2 which was in a low luminosity state , we determine a flux upper limit of 1.5 \times 10 ^ { -14 } erg cm ^ { -2 } s ^ { -1 } ( 0.3 – 10.0 keV ) .
Furthermore , two new sources ( XMMU J005735.7–721932 and XMMU J010030.2–722035 ) with hard spectrum and emission line objects as likely optical counterparts are proposed as new X-ray binary candidates .