Low temperature behavior of nonequilibrium multilevel systems

We give a low temperature formula for the stationary occupations in Markovian systems away from detailed balance. Two applications are discussed, one to determine the direction of the ratchet current and one on population inversion. Both can take advantage of low temperature to improve the gain and typical nonequilibrium features. The new formula brings to the foreground the importance of kinetic aspects in terms of reactivities for deciding the levels with highest occupation and thus gives a detailed quantitative meaning to Landauer's blowtorch theorem at low temperature.