Conserving symmetries in Bose-Einstein condensate dynamics requires many-body theory.

We explain from first principles why satisfying conservation laws in Bose Einstein condensate dynamics requires many-body theory. For the Gross-Pitaevskii mean-field we show analytically and numerically that conservation laws are violated. We provide examples for angular momentum and linear momentum conservation. Arbitrarily large violations occur despite negligible depletion and interaction energy. For the case of angular momentum we show through extensive many-body simulations how the conservation law can be gradually restored on the many-body level. Implications are discussed.