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Irreversibility in a unitary finite-rate protocol: The concept of internal friction

The concept of internal friction, a fully quantum mechanical phenomena, is investigated in a simple, experimentally accessible quantum system in which a spin-1/2 is driven by a transverse magnetic field in a quantum adiabatic process. The irreversible production of the waste energy due to the quantum friction is quantitatively analyzed in a forward-backward unitary transform of the system Hamiltonian by using the quantum relative entropy between the actual density matrix obtained in a parametric transformation and the one in a reversible adiabatic process. Analyzing the role of total transformation time and the different pulse control schemes on the internal friction reveal the non-monotone character of the internal friction as a function of the total protocol time and the possibility for almost frictionless solutions in finite-time transformations.