Purification of Lindblad dynamics, geometry of mixed states and geometric phases

We propose a nonlinear Schrodinger equation in a Hilbert space enlarged with an ancilla such that the partial trace of its solution obeys to the Lindblad equation of an open quantum system. The dynamics involved by this nonlinear Schrodinger equation constitutes then a purification of the Lindblad dynamics. We study the (non adiabatic) geometric phases involved by this purification and show that our theory unifies several definitions of geometric phases for open systems which have been previously proposed. We study the geometry involved by this purification and show that it is a complicated geometric structure related to a higher gauge theory, i.e. a categorical bibundle with a connective structure. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.