0120212

This is a proposal to carry out the first hard X-ray/gamma-ray study of the Small Magellanic Cloud. The combined timing and imaging ability of INTEGRAL will permit a detailed study of the surprisingly large population of High Mass X-ray Binaries in this galaxy. It will provide the first opportunity to study a whole class of objects in a different environment from our Milky Way and to address some fundamental questions related to the evolution of these systems and their exceptionally large luminosity variations. We also expect that from these observations we will be able to deduce some vital clues into the star formation history of the SMC. [truncated! Please see actual data for full text]