Targeted search for young radio pulsars in the SMC: discovery of two new pulsars

We report the first rotation powered pulsars discovered in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) in more than a decade. PSR J0043-73 and PSR J0052-72 were discovered during a Parkes Multi-Beam (PMB) survey of MCSNR J0127-7332, and five new, optically selected, supernova remnant (SNR) candidates identified by the XMM-Newton survey. In addition to the candidates, we adjusted the PMB rotation to include additional nine SNRs and pulsar wind nebulae. We searched for young pulsars (1-200 ms) employing a Fourier analysis with PRESTO, as well as a search for longer period pulsars (200 ms-360 s) with a fast folding algorithm. Our targeted survey had a limiting flux density of 0.039 mJy for periods greater than 50 ms. Although not the main target of this search it was also sensitive to millisecond pulsars. PSR J0043-73 has a period and dispersion measure of 937.429 37 (26) ms and 115.1 (3.4) pc cm^-3, respectively, and PSR J0052-72 has a period of 191.444 328 (46) ms and a DM of 158.6 (1.6) pc cm^-3.