The evolution of Bose-Einstein condensates is amply described by the time-dependent GrossPitaevskii mean-field theory which assumes all bosons to reside in a single time-dependent oneparticle state throughout the propagation process. In this work, we go beyond mean-field and develop an essentially-exact many-body theory for the propagation of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation of N interacting identical bosons. In our theory, the time-dependent many-boson wavefunction is written as a sum of permanents assembled from orthogonal one-particle functions, or orbitals, where both the expansion coefficients and the permanents (orbitals) themselves are timedependent and fully determined according to a standard time-dependent variational principle. By employing either the usual Lagrangian formulation or the Dirac-Frenkel variational principle we arrive at two sets of coupled equations-of-motion, one for the orbitals and one for the expansion coefficients. The first set comprises of first-order differential equations in time and non-linear integro-differential equations in position space, whereas the second set consists of first-order differential equations with time-dependent coefficients. We call our theory multi-configurational timedependent Hartree for bosons, or MCTDHB(M ), where M specifies the number of time-dependent orbitals used to construct the permanents. Numerical implementation of the theory is reported and illustrative numerical examples of many-body dynamics of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates are provided and discussed.

An essentially exact approach to compute the wave function in the time-dependent many-boson Schrödinger equation is derived and employed to study accurately the process of splitting a trapped condensate. As the trap transforms from a single to double well the ground state changes from a coherent to a fragmented state. We follow the role played by many-body excited states during the splitting process. Among others, a "counterintuitive" regime is found in which the evolution of the condensate when the splitting is sufficiently slow is not to the fragmented ground state, but to a low-lying excited state which is a coherent state. Experimental implications are discussed.

The quantum dynamics of a one-dimensional bosonic Josephson junction is studied by solving the time-dependent many-boson Schrödinger equation numerically exactly. Already for weak interparticle interactions and on short time scales, the commonly-employed mean-field and manybody methods are found to deviate substantially from the exact dynamics. The system exhibits rich many-body dynamics like enhanced tunneling and a novel equilibration phenomenon of the junction depending on the interaction, attributed to a quick loss of coherence.

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We show that the successful and formally exact multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree method (MCTDH) takes on a unified and compact form when specified for systems of identical particles (MCTDHF for fermions MCTDHB for bosons). In particular the equations of motion for the orbitals depend explicitly and solely on the reduced one- and two-body density matrices of the system's many-particle wave function. We point out that this appealing representation of the equations of motion opens up further possibilities for approximate propagation schemes.