  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. Towards
very low temperatures we apply a Freidlin-Wentzel type analysis for continuous
time Markov jump processes. It leads to a definition of dominant states in
terms of both heat and escape rates.
