Squeezing by Critical Speeding-up. Applications in Quantum Metrology.

We present an alternative protocol allowing for the preparation of critical states that instead of suffering from the critical slowing-down benefits from the critical speeding-up. Paradoxically, we prepare these states by going away from the critical point which allows for the speed-up. We apply the protocol to the paradigmatic quantum Rabi model and its classical oscillator limit as well as the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model. Subsequently, we discuss the application of the adiabatic speed-up protocol in quantum metrology and compare its performance with critical quantum metrology. We show that critical quantum metrology with the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model cannot even overcome the standard quantum limit, and we argue that, in general, critical metrology is a suboptimal metrological strategy. Finally, we conclude that systems exhibiting a phase transition are indeed interesting from the viewpoint of quantum technologies, however, it may not be the critical point that should attract the most attention.