In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, what are the necessary conditions on the potential (or on the hamiltonian in general) for the ground state to be non-degenrate? 



Non-degeneracy of ground state in quantum mechanics
If a finite number of non-relativistic particles are moving in an infinite potential well, then the combined system has a nondegenerate ground state, regardless of the symmetry of the hamiltonian. I remember this from a long time ago, and I always thought it was impressive. I also remember I was always annoyed that I didn't know how to prove it, or know a reference where I can look it up. If you find one, let me know!


There's probably some sort of fancy entropic argument that you could use to get this result, if that's your thing.


If the potential was bounded above, I can't see immediately why this should create degeneracy on the ground state --- so it's plausible that the theorem holds in this case as well.


Systems containing infinite systems of particles can, and often do, exhibit degeneracy in their ground state.


