Constraints on Bianchi-I type universe with SH0ES anchored Pantheon+ SNIa data

Abstract: We study the Bianchi-I cosmological model motivated by signals of statistical isotropy violation seen in cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations and others. To that end, we consider various kinds of anisotropic matter that source anisotropy in our model, specifically Cosmic strings, Magnetic fields, Domain walls and Lorentz violation generated magnetic fields. These anisotropic matter sources, taking one at a time, are studied for their co-evolution with standard model (isotropic) sources viz., dust-like (dark/normal) matter, and dark energy modelled as cosmological constant. We constrain the Hubble parameter, density fractions of anisotropic matter, cold dark matter (CDM), and dark energy ($\Lambda$) in a Bianchi-I universe with planar symmetry i.e., which has a global ellipsoidal geometry, and try to find signatures of a cosmic preferred axis if any. The latest compilation of Type Ia Supernova (SNIa) data from Pantheon+SH0ES collaboration is used in our analysis to obtain constraints on cosmological parameters and any preferred axis for our universe. In our analysis, we found mild evidence for a cosmic preferred axis. It is interesting to note that this preferred axis lies broadly in the vicinity of other prominent cosmic anisotropy axes reported in the literature from diverse data sets. Also we find some evidence for non-zero (negative) cosmic shear and eccentricity that characterize different expansion rates in different directions and deviation from an isotropic scale factor respectively. The energy density fractions of two of the sources considered are found to be non-zero at a $2\sigma$ confidence level. To be more conclusive, we require more SNIa host galaxy data for tighter constraints on distance and absolute magnitude calibration which are expected to be available from the future JWST observations and others.