Casimir invariants and the Jacobi identity in Dirac's theory of constrained Hamiltonian systems

Abstract

We consider constrained Hamiltonian systems in the framework of Dirac's theory. We show that the Jacobi identity results from imposing that the constraints are Casimir invariants, regardless of the fact that the matrix of Poisson brackets between constraints is invertible or not. We point out that the proof we provide ensures the validity of the Jacobi identity everywhere in phase space, and not just on the surface defined by the constraints. Two examples are considered: A finite dimensional system with an odd number of constraints, and the Vlasov-Poisson reduction from Vlasov-Maxwell equations.