THE CONSISTENT NEWTONIAN LIMIT of EINSTEIN’S GRAVITY WITH a COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT

We derive the ‘exact’ Newtonian limit of general relativity with a positive cosmological constant Λ. We point out that in contrast to the case with Λ ≤ 0, the presence of a positive Λ in Einsteins’s equations enforces, via the condition |Φ| 1, on the potential Φ, a range Rmax(Λ) r Rmin(Λ), within which the Newtonian limit is valid. It also leads to the existence of a maximum mass, Mmax(Λ). As a consequence we cannot put the boundary condition for the solution of the Poisson equation at infinity. A boundary condition suitably chosen now at a finite range will then get reflected in the solution of Φ provided the mass distribution is not spherically symmetric.