X-ray study of an enigmatic hard X-ray emitting normal B star

Our search for new GammaCas analogs in the 2XMMp catalogue has led to thediscovery of very hard Xray emission (kT virgul 7 keV) from an otherwise normalK8.8 B23V star. The Log(Lx) of 32.4 is typical for GammaCas analogs. However,the absence of any circumstellar disc, five years after the XMM observations,opens the possibility that the star is one of the wind accreting neutron starbinaries predicted by massive binary evolution theories. The discovery and studyof such a system would allow to test evolutionary models and quantify thecontribution of these systems to the overall population of accreting galacticsources. We propose to reobserve the source with XMMNewton and obtainsimultaneous optical spectroscopy to determine its true nature. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]