$\mathcal{H}$-matrix approximability of inverses of discretizations of the fractional Laplacian

The integral version of the fractional Laplacian on a bounded domain is discretized by a Galerkin approximation based on piecewise linear functions on a quasi-uniform mesh. We show that the inverse of the associated stiffness matrix can be approximated by blockwise low-rank matrices at an exponential rate in the block rank.