Unveiling the nature of the highly absorbed X-ray source SAXJ1748.2-2808 with XMM-Newton

We report on the results of an EPIC XMM-Newton observation of the faint source SAXJ1748.2-2808 and the surrounding field. This source was discovered during the BeppoSAX Galactic center survey performed in 1997-1998. A spatial analysis resulted in the detection of 31 sources within the EPIC field of view. SAXJ1748.2-2808 is clearly resolved into 2 sources in EPIC images with the brighter contributing almost 80% of the 2-10keV flux. Spectral fits to this main source are consistent with an absorbed power-law with a photon index of 1.4+/-0.5 and absorption equivalent to 14E22cm-2 together with an iron line at 6.6+/-0.2 keV with an equivalent width of ~780eV. The significantly better statistics of the XMM-Newton observation, compared with BeppoSAX,allows to exclude a thermal nature for the X-ray emission. A comparison with other observations of SAXJ1748.2-2808 does not reveal any evidence for spectral or intensity long-term variability. Based on these properties we propose that the source is a low-luminosity high-mass X-ray binary located in the Galactic center region.