  A method is presented to transfer a system of two-level atoms from a spin
coherent state to a maximally spin squeezed Dicke state, relevant for quantum
metrology and quantum information processing. The initial state is the ground
state of an initial linear Hamiltonian which is gradually turned into a final
quadratic Hamiltonian whose ground state is the selected Dicke state. We use
compensating operators to suppress diabatic transitions to unwanted states that
would occur if the change were not slow. We discuss the possibilities of
constructing the compensating operators by sequential application of quadratic
Hamiltonians available in experiments.
