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We report the discovery of a very young high-mass X-ray binary (HMXB) system associated with the supernova remnant (SNR) MCSNR J0513-6724 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), using XMM–Newton X-ray observations. The HMXB is located at the geometrical centre of extended soft X-ray emission, which we confirm as an SNR. The HMXB spectrum is consistent with an absorbed power law with spectral index ∼1.6 and a luminosity of 7 × 1033 erg s−1 (0.2–12 keV). Tentative X-ray pulsations are observed with a periodicity of 4.4 s and the OGLE I -band light curve of the optical counterpart from more than 17.5 yr reveals a period of 2.2324 ± 0.0003 d, which we interpret as the orbital period of the binary system. The X-ray spectrum of the SNR is consistent with non-equilibrium shock models as expected for young/less evolved SNRs. From the derived ionization time-scale we estimate the age of the SNR to be <6 kyr. The association of the HMXB with the SNR makes it the youngest HMXB, in the earliest evolutionary stage known to date. An HMXB as young as this can switch on as an accreting pulsar only when the spin period has reached a critical value. Under this assumption, we obtain an upper limit to the magnetic field of <5 × 1011 G. This implies several interesting possibilities including magnetic field burial, possibly by an episode of post-supernova hyper-critical accretion. Since these fields are expected to diffuse out on a time-scale of 103–104 yr, the discovery of a very young HMXB can provide us the unique opportunity to observe the evolution of the observable magnetic field for the first time in X-ray binaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the discovery of a new Small Magellanic Cloud pulsar wind nebula (PWN) at the edge of the supernova remnant (SNR) DEM S5. The pulsar powered object has a cometary morphology similar to the Galactic PWN analogues PSR B1951+32 and 'the mouse'. It is travelling supersonically through the interstellar medium. We estimate the pulsar kick velocity to be in the range of 700–2000 km s−1 for an age between 28 and 10 kyr. The radio spectral index for this SNR–PWN–pulsar system is flat (–0.29 ± 0.01) consistent with other similar objects. We infer that the putative pulsar has a radio spectral index of –1.8, which is typical for Galactic pulsars. We searched for dispersion measures up to 1000 cm−3 pc but found no convincing candidates with an S/N greater than 8. We produce a polarization map for this PWN at 5500 MHz and find a mean fractional polarization of P  ∼ 23 per cent. The X-ray power-law spectrum (Γ ∼ 2) is indicative of non-thermal synchrotron emission as is expected from PWN–pulsar system. Finally, we detect DEM S5 in infrared (IR) bands. Our IR photometric measurements strongly indicate the presence of shocked gas that is expected for SNRs. However, it is unusual to detect such IR emission in an SNR with a supersonic bow shock PWN. We also find a low-velocity H  i cloud of ∼107 km s−1 that is possibly interacting with DEM S5. SNR DEM S5 is the first confirmed detection of a pulsar-powered bow shock nebula found outside the Galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]