Gaussian thermostat ($D_t\dot{\gamma }=E-⟨E,\dot{\gamma }⟩\dot{\gamma }$)

At unit speed on a Riemannian surface, the right-hand side is $⟨E,iv⟩iv$. This removes the velocity-parallel component of the forcing, so differentiating $|\dot{\gamma }{|}^2$ gives zero. The dynamics need not preserve the ordinary Liouville volume of a surface geodesic flow.

For $F=X+\lambda V$, the canonical fields $X,V$ preserve Liouville volume of a surface geodesic flow, so the divergence is $V\lambda$. For a Gaussian thermostat, $\lambda =⟨E,iv⟩$ and $V(iv)=-v$, giving the stated sign. If $E=\nabla f$, then the density $e^{f\circ \pi }$ makes this divergence zero.