Latent symmetry induced degeneracies

Degeneracies in the energy spectra of physical systems are commonly considered to be either of accidental character or induced by symmetries of the Hamiltonian. We develop an approach to explain degeneracies by tracing them back to symmetries of an effective Hamiltonian derived by subsystem partitioning. We provide an intuitive interpretation of such latent symmetries by relating them to corresponding local symmetries in the powers of the underlying Hamiltonian matrix. As an application, we relate the degeneracies induced by the rotation symmetry of a real Hamiltonian to a non-abelian latent symmetry group. It is demonstrated that the rotational symmetries can be broken in a controlled manner while maintaining the underlying more fundamental latent symmetry. This opens up the perspective of investigating accidental degeneracies in terms of latent symmetries.