  The analysis of geometric phases associated with level crossing is reduced to
the familiar diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in the second quantized
formulation. A hidden local gauge symmetry, which is associated with the
arbitrariness of the phase choice of a complete orthonormal basis set, becomes
explicit in this formulation (in particular, in the adiabatic approximation)
and specifies physical observables. The choice of a basis set which specifies
the coordinate in the functional space is arbitrary in the second quantization,
and a sub-class of coordinate transformations, which keeps the form of the
action invariant, is recognized as the gauge symmetry. We discuss the
implications of this hidden local gauge symmetry in detail by analyzing
geometric phases for cyclic and noncyclic evolutions. It is shown that the
hidden local symmetry provides a basic concept alternative to the notion of
holonomy to analyze geometric phases and that the analysis based on the hidden
local gauge symmetry leads to results consistent with the general prescription
of Pancharatnam. We however note an important difference between the geometric
phases for cyclic and noncyclic evolutions. We also explain a basic difference
between our hidden local gauge symmetry and a gauge symmetry (or equivalence
class) used by Aharonov and Anandan in their definition of generalized
geometric phases.
