Say you have 2 symmetric matrices, $A$ and $B$, and you know that every linear combination $xA+yB$ ($x,\\,y\in \mathbb{R}$) has an eigenvalue of multiplicity at least $m>1$. Such a situation can of course be obtained if $A$, $B$ have a common eigenspace of multiplicity at least $m$.
My question is: is it the only possibility?
A way to proceed is the following: the characteristic polynomia of the generic matrix is $\det(xA+yB-tI)$, and its discriminant $\Delta$ (with respect to $t$) is a homogeneous polynomial in $x,y$ of degree $n^2-n$, where $n$ is the number of rows and columns in $A$ and $B$. Since every matrix in the family has some eigenvalue of multiplicity $>1$, the polynomial $\Delta$ vanishes identically, hance all the $n^2-n+1$ coefficients in $\Delta$ vanish. This gives $n^2-n+1$ polynomial conditions on the $n^2+n$ coefficients of $A$ and $B$, and this might help somehow.
Still, both finding these polynomial conditions and solving them, seems to be painful and extremely computational. Maybe there are better ways to proceed $\ldots$?
Thanks in advance!