1270007

We propose to perform two exposures of half INTEGRAL revolution (~85 ks) in hexagonal dither pattern to ensure an accurate broad-band coverage. One observation should be performed near the maximum of the current giant outburst which is presumably happening at the start of the INTEGRAL visibility window (see below) the other about 2-3 weeks afterwards when the flux will be declining by a factor ~2. The scientific goals of these observations are:- a comparison with the spectrum of the previous outburst: neutron star X-ray binaries show remarkable similarities between the outbursts but for V0332+53 we have not had the opportunity to verify this trend owing to the lack of outbursts - extension the luminosity range of the L_X vs E_cyc correlation to the maximum luminosity of the current outburst which is still unknown and might exceed the previous one - application of physical models for accretion onto magnetized neutron stars to the unique broad-band spectrum observed by INTEGRAL - a combined study of timing and spectral properties using high S/N data from the current and previous outburst to unveil the accretion geometry.We notice that owing to observational constraints the 2005 outburst was followed by INTEGRAL in rather short snapshots (29 and 57 ks in rev. 272 and 273) at the outburst maximum and the proposed observations will overcome this limitation giving an unprecedented data-set to be analysed. The current 15-50 keV flux is about 600 mCrab and seems to be still increasing in a quasi-linear trend see http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/results/transients/V0332p53/ [truncated! Please see actual data for full text]