Discovery of a faint 437 s X-ray pulsar 1SAX J1452.8-5949

A new pulsar, 1SAX J1452.8-5949, was discovered during a BeppoSAX galactic plane survey on 1999 July 20 at R.A.=14 h; 52 m; 49fs3 , Dec=-59^deg 49arcmin 18arcsec (J2000) with a 90% confidence uncertainty radius of 50arcsec . Coherent pulsations were detected with a barycentric period of a 437.4 +/- 1.4 s. The X-ray spectrum can be modeled by a power-law with a photon index of 1.4 +/- 0.6 and absorption consistent with the galactic value in the direction of the source (1.9 x 10²² atom cm^-2). An Fe K line with a equivalent width of ~1.3 keV may be present in the spectrum. The unabsorbed 2-10 keV flux is 9 x 10^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1. The X-ray properties and lack of an obvious optical counterpart are consistent with a Be star companion at a distance of between approximately 6 and 12 kpc which implies a luminosity of (4-15)x 10³³ erg s^-1.