Wolfgang Muschik, Corresponding author (muschik@physik.tu-berlin.de), Jürgen Siebert, Heiko Herrmann and Gunnar Rückner
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Berlin, Hardenbergstr. 36,
D-10623 Berlin, Germany
Communicated by K.-H. Hoffmann, Chemnitz, Germany
Heat conduction close-to-Fourier means that we look for a minimal extension of heat conduction theory using the usual Fourier expression of the heat flux density and modifying that of the internal energy as minimally as possible by choosing the minimal state space. Applying Liu's procedure results in the class of materials and a differential equation both belonging to the close-to-Fourier case of heat conduction.