Conservative dissipation: How important is the Jacobi identity in the dynamics?

Abstract: Hamiltonian dynamics are characterized by a function, called the Hamiltonian, and a Poisson bracket. The Hamiltonian is a conserved quantity due to the anti-symmetry of the Poisson bracket. The Poisson bracket satisfies the Jacobi identity which is usually more intricate and more complex to comprehend than the conservation of the Hamiltonian. Here we investigate the importance of the Jacobi identity in the dynamics by considering three different types of conservative flows in R3 : Hamiltonian, almost-Poisson and metriplectic. The comparison of their dynamics reveals the importance of the Jacobi identity in structuring the resulting phase space.