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Fermionic and bosonic ac conductivities at strong disorder

We study the ac conduction in a system of fermions or bosons strongly localised in a disordered array of sites with short-range interactions at frequencies larger than the intersite tunnelling but smaller than the characteristic fluctuation of the on-site energy. While the main contribution $σ_0(ω)$ to the conductivity comes from local dipole-type excitations on close pairs of sites, coherent processes on three or more sites lead to an interference correction $σ_1(ω)$, which depends on the statistics of the charge carriers and can be suppressed by magnetic field. For bosons the correction is always positive, while for fermions it can be positive or negative depending on whether the conduction is dominated by effective single-particle or single-hole processes. We calculate the conductivity explicitly assuming a constant density of states of single-site excitations. Independently of the statistics, $σ_0(ω)=const$. For bosons $σ_1(ω)\propto \log(C/ω)$. For fermions $σ_1(ω)\propto\log[\max(A,ω)/ω]-\log[\max(B,ω)/ω]$, where the first and the second term are respectively the particle and hole contributions, $A$ and $B$ being the particle and hole energy cutoffs. The ac magnetoresistance has the same sign as $σ_1(ω)$.