Optical counterparts to four X-ray sources in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Abstract

We report on the spectroscopic and photometric analysis of possible optical counterparts to four X-ray sources in the Small Magellanic Cloud: AX J0049.4-7323, AX J0057.4-7325, RX J0058.2-7321 and RX J0101.1-7206. In the case of the last two, we suggest that the presence of strong Halpha emission from previously proposed optical candidates is definite confirmation that these are Be stars. Similarly, we detected strong Halpha emission from the optical source identified with RX J0049.7-7323 within the error circle for AX J0049.4-7323 and we conclude that these are one and the same object. We were unable to detect any Halpha emission from any of the candidates for AX J0057.4-7325 and the associated photometric analysis was also inconclusive.