# Discovery of a putative supernova remnant around the long-period X-ray pulsar SXP 1323 in the Small Magellanic Cloud

## TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a supernova remnant shell around the Be X-ray binary SXP 1323 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, linking it to the neutron star's supernova origin and providing insights into such systems in low-metallicity environments.

## Contribution

It presents the first detection of a supernova remnant around SXP 1323, a long-period Be X-ray binary, expanding understanding of supernova remnants in such systems.

## Key findings

- Shell expansion velocity of approximately 100 km/s
- Shell emission due to shock excitation
- Association of the shell with a supernova explosion 40,000 years ago

## Abstract

We report the discovery of a circular shell centred on the Be X-ray binary (BeXB) SXP 1323 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The shell was detected in an Halpha image obtained with the Very Large Telescope (VLT). Follow-up spectroscopy with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) showed that the shell expands with a velocity of $\approx$ 100 km/s and that its emission is due to shock excitation. We suggest that this shell is the remnant of the supernova explosion that led to the formation of the SXP 1323's neutron star $\approx$ 40 000 yr ago. SXP 1323 represents the second known case of a BeXB associated with a supernova remnant (the first one is SXP 1062). Interestingly, both these BeXBs harbour long period pulsars and are located in a low-metallicity galaxy.