Does the Universe Accelerate Equally in all Directions?

Understand

We employ the Union compilation of Type Ia supernovae with a maximum likelihood analysis to search for a dark energy dipole.

• To approach this problem, we present a simple, computationally efficient, and largely model independent method.
• We opted to weight each SN by its observed error estimate, so poorly measured SNe that deviate substantially from the Hubble law do not produce spurious results.
• We find, with very low significance, a dipole in the cosmic acceleration directed roughly towards the cosmic microwave background dipole, but this is almost certainly coincidental.