1207.1122 (Christian Maes et al.)

Heat bounds and the blowtorch theorem    [PDF]

Christian Maes, Karel Netocny

We study driven systems with possible population inversion and we give optimal bounds on the relative occupations in terms of released heat. A precise meaning to Landauer's blowtorch theorem (1975) is obtained stating that nonequilibrium occupations are essentially modified by kinetic effects, which, towards very low temperatures, also leads to a different meaning of ground state, not solely in terms of energy.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.1122