The structure of the Newtonian limit

We consider a smooth one-parameter family of four-dimensional manifolds X,≥0, each one endowed with a covariant metric g. It is assumed that g is a Lorentz metric for each >0, i.e., the signature of g is (+,−,−,−) for >0, while the limit metric g₀ on X₀ is assumed to be degenerated of rank 1, i.e., the signature of g₀ is (+,0,0,0). We characterize when the limit manifold X₀ inherits the geometric structure of a Newtonian gravitation. The limit manifold X₀ is a Newtonian gravitation if and only if there exist the limits of the Levi-Civita connection , the curvature operator and the contravariant Einstein tensor G² as →0. Moreover, the existence of these limits is characterized in terms of the Taylor expansion of the family {g} with respect to the parameter .