A Model-independent Test of Cosmic Isotropy with Low-z Pantheon
  Supernovae
  The assumption of homogeneity and isotropy on large scales is one of the main
hypotheses of the standard cosmological model. In this paper, we revisit a test
of cosmological isotropy using type Ia supernova (SN Ia) distances provided by
the latest SN Ia compilation available, namely, the Pantheon compilation. We
perform a model-independent analysis by selecting low-redshift subsamples lying
in two redshift intervals, i.e., z $\leq$ 0.10 and z $\leq$ 0.20. By mapping
the directional asymmetry of cosmological parameters across the sky, we show
that the current SN Ia data favor the hypothesis of cosmic isotropy, as the
anisotropy found in the maps can be mostly ascribed to the nonuniform sky
coverage of the data rather than an actual cosmological signal. These results
confirm that there is null evidence against the cosmological principle in the
low-redshift universe.
