Abstract
We investigate the condensate wave function and elementary excitations of strongly interacting bosonic polar molecules in a harmonic trap, treating the scattering amplitude beyond the standard first Born approximation (FBA). By using an appropriate trial wave function in the variational method, effects of the leading-order correction beyond the FBA have been investigated and shown to be significantly enhanced when the system is close to the phase boundary of collapse. How such a leading-order effect of going beyond the FBA can be observed in a realistic experiment is also discussed. © 2010 The American Physical Society.