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IN THE PAST YEAR WE TRAINED AN MIT UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT MS. AFURA TAYLOR TO WORK ON THE XMM-NEWTON SGR B2 DATASET. AFURA DID AN EXCELLENT WORK REDUCING XMM DATA EXTRACTING SPECTRUM AND LIGHT CURVES FROM THE TARGET. SHE ALSO PERFORMED IMAGE ANALYSIS TO UNDERSTAND THE MORPHOLOGY OF THE INTERESTED SOURCE. SPECTRAL FITTING TIMING ANALYSIS AND IMAGE ANALYSIS ON THE XMM-NEWTON DATASET WERE ALL COMPLETED SO FAR. AFURA MADE A POSTER PRESENTATION REPORTING HER ANALYSIS RESULTS ON THIS PROJECT AT THE #235 AAS IN HONOLULU HAWAII IN JANUARY 2020 WHICH IS GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR AN UNDERGRADUATE. WE HAVE A SIMULTANEOUS 150 KS NUSTAR OBSERVATION ON SGR B2 OBTAINED FROM A SEPARATE PROPOSAL. JOINT XMM AND NUSTAR ANALYSIS IS THE MOST POWERFUL TOOL FOR THIS ANALYSIS. THEREFORE OUR TEAM ALSO REDUCED THE NUSTAR DATA AND PERFORMED SPECTRAL AND IMAGING STUDY. BY FEBRUARY 2020 WE HAVE FINISHED JOINT ANALYSIS OF NUSTAR AND XMM-NEWTON DATA. BY COMPARING WITH ARCHIVAL DATA WE CONCLUDE THAT AFTER TWO DECADES OF DECAYING SGR B2 S X-RAY EMISSION PROBABLY HAS ENTERED A CONSTANT BASE LEVEL EMISSION STAGE JUST AS WHAT WE PREDICTED IN THE ORIGINAL PROPOSAL. THIS CONSTANT EMISSION LEVEL IS MOST LIKELY DUE TO LOW-ENERGY COSMIC-RAY CONTRIBUTION. THUS WE CAN USE SGR B2 CLOUD AS A PROBE FOR MEV-GEV CHARGED PARTICLES IN THE GALACTIC CENTER. OUR NEXT STEP IS TO WRITE A PAPER REPORTING ALL OUR FINDINGS FOR THIS PROJECT WITH A TITLE OF FIRST CONSTRAINTS ON THE GALACTIC CENTER MEV-GEV COSMIC-RAYS USING REMAINING X-RAY EMISSION FROM SGR B2 . UNDERGRADUATES INVOLVED IN THIS PROJECT WILL BE MAJOR AUTHORS FOR THIS PAPER. THE SCIENCE PI SHUO ZHANG HAD A TRANSITION TIME FROM A POSTDOC AT MIT TO AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT BARD COLLEGE. THEREFORE THIS PROJECT HAS TO BE TRANSFERRED FROM MIT TO BARD COLLEGE. THE LAST PHRASE OF THE PROJECT WILL TAKE PLACE AT BARD COLLEGE. OUR PLAN IS TO FOCUS ON WRITING THE DRAFT DURING JUNE TO AUGUST 2020 AND SUBMIT THE PAPER TO THE ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL IN FALL 2020. WE THEREFORE APPRECIATE CONTINUING SUPPORT TO THIS PROJECT WHICH WILL ALLOW US TO PUBLISH THIS RESULT.

$23,891FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA

Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson NY

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