A Hamiltonian formulation of generic many-body systems with balanced loss and gain is presented. It is shown that a Hamiltonian formulation is possible only if the balancing of loss and gain terms occur in a pairwise fashion. It is also shown that with the choice of a suitable co-ordinate, the Hamiltonian can always be reformulated in the background of a pseudo- Euclidean metric. If the equations of motion of some of the well-known many-body systems like Calogero models are generalized to include balanced loss and gain, it appears that the same may not be amenable to a Hamiltonian formulation. A few exactly solvable systems with balanced loss and gain, along with a set of integrals of motion is constructed. The examples include a coupled chain of nonlinear oscillators and a many-particle Calogero-type model with four-body inverse square plus two-body pair-wise harmonic interactions. For the case of nonlinear oscillators, stable solution exists even if the dissipation parameter has unbo 查看全文>>