Fluctuation symmetry leads to GENERIC equations with non-quadratic dissipation

Abstract: We develop a formalism to discuss the properties of GENERIC systems in terms of corresponding Hamiltonians that appear in the characterization of large-deviation limits. We demonstrate how the GENERIC structure naturally arises from a certain symmetry in the Hamiltonian, which extends earlier work that has connected the large-deviation behaviour of reversible stochastic processes to the gradient-flow structure of their deterministic limit. Natural examples of application include particle systems with inertia.