Third law of thermodynamics in the presence of a heat flux

Following a maximum entropy formalism, we study a one-dimensional crystal under a heat flux. We obtain the phonon distribution function and evaluate the nonequilibrium temperature, the specific heat, and the entropy as functions of the internal energy and the heat flux, in both the quantum and the classical limits. Some analogies between the behavior of equilibrium systems at low absolute temperature and nonequilibrium steady states under high values of the heat flux are shown, which point to a possible generalization of the third law in nonequilibrium situations. © 1995 The American Physical Society.