No sign of G2's encounter affecting Sgr A*'s X-ray flaring rate from
  $Chandra$ observations
  An unusual object, G2, had its pericenter passage around Sgr A*, the
$4\times10^6$ M$_\odot$ supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre, in
Summer 2014. Several research teams have reported evidence that following G2's
pericenter encounter the rate of Sgr A*'s bright X-ray flares increased
significantly. Our analysis carefully treats varying flux contamination from a
nearby magnetic neutron star and is free from complications induced by using
data from multiple X-ray observatories with different spatial resolutions. We
test the scenario of an increased bright X-ray flaring rate using a massive
dataset from the \textit{Chandra X-ray Observatory}, the only X-ray instrument
that can spatially distinguish between Sgr A* and the nearby Galactic Centre
magnetar throughout the full extended period encompassing G2's encounter with
Sgr A*. We use X-ray data from the 3 Ms observations of the \textit{Chandra}
\textit{X-ray Visionary Program} (XVP) in 2012 as well as an additional 1.5 Ms
of observations up to 2018. We use detected flares to make distributions of
flare properties. Using simulations of X-ray flares accounting for important
factors such as the different $Chandra$ instrument modes, we test the null
hypothesis on Sgr A*'s bright (or any flare category) X-ray flaring rate around
different potential change points. In contrast to previous studies, our results
are consistent with the null hypothesis; the same model parameters produce
distributions consistent with the observed ones around any plausible change
point.
