0120036

Neutron capture processes can be expected in any situation where neutrons are accelerated to high energies and rapidly thermalized in a sufficiently dense medium. Solar flare spectra for example are often dominated by the presence of very strong narow line emission at 2.2 MeV resulting from neutron capture on hydrogen. These observations indicate the importance of neutron capture measurements as a tracer of energetic particle interactions. This provides a strong motivation to search for observable emission in other (non-solar) astrophysical sources where compact binary systems or stelllar flares represent potential sites of measurable 2.2 MeV emission. A previous analysis of data from the COMPTEL experiment on CGRO led to the first all-sky map of 2.2 MeV line emission. The map was nearly featureless with only one significant point-like feature. This source (GRO J0332-87) has been tentatively associated with the unusual white dwarf object RE 0317-853. It has further been speculated that the 2.2 MeV emission may result from some type of flaring proces near the surface of a white dwarf.Here we propose an observation of the 2.2 MeV point-source candidate by the IBIS/SPI instruments on INTEGRAL. The purpose of this observation will be three-fold: 1) to provide an independent confirmation of the COMPTEL source 2) to further define the characteristics of the source (energy spectrum location) and 3) to test for source variability. Observations with INTEGRAL will take advantage of the unique capabilities of SPI for acquiring high sensitivity data with both high energy and angular resolution. In addition observations with JME-X and IBIS will permit a sensitive search for energetic sources that might be related to the observed COMPTEL source irrespective of the results from SPI. [truncated! Please see actual data for full text]