  We study the quantum dynamics of a one-dimensional spin-1/2 anisotropic XY
model in a transverse field when the transverse field or the anisotropic
interaction is quenched at a slow but uniform rate. The two quenching schemes
are called transverse and anisotropic quenching respectively. Our emphasis in
this paper is on the anisotropic quenching scheme and we compare the results
with those of the other scheme. In the process of anisotropic quenching, the
system crosses all the quantum critical lines of the phase diagram where the
relaxation time diverges. The evolution is non-adiabatic in the time interval
when the parameters are close to their critical values, and is adiabatic
otherwise. The density of defects produced due to non-adiabatic transitions is
calculated by mapping the many-particle system to an equivalent Landau-Zener
problem and is generally found to vary as $1/\sqrt{\tau}$, where $\tau$ is the
characteristic time scale of quenching, a scenario that supports the
Kibble-Zurek mechanism. Interestingly, in the case of anisotropic quenching,
there exists an additional non-adiabatic transition, in comparison to the
transverse quenching case, with the corresponding probability peaking at an
incommensurate value of the wave vector. In the special case in which the
system passes through a multi-critical point, the defect density is found to
vary as $1/\tau^{1/6}$. The von Neumann entropy of the final state is shown to
maximize at a quenching rate around which the ordering of the final state
changes from antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic.
