Dissipative systems in metric theories of gravity. Foundations and applications of the energy formalism

In this paper we introduce a new procedure, termed by us \emph{energy formalism}, to deal with dissipative systems in metric theories of gravity. This approach aims at determining the analytic expression of Rayleigh dissipation function in the context of the inverse problem in the calculus of variations. We describe our method in detail, presenting a simple example. After, we consider as first extensive application the general relativistic Poynting-Robertson effect. The obtained results and future implications are discussed.