  This paper introduces the hierarchical interpolative factorization for
elliptic partial differential equations (HIF-DE) in two (2D) and three
dimensions (3D). This factorization takes the form of an approximate
generalized LU/LDL decomposition that facilitates the efficient inversion of
the discretized operator. HIF-DE is based on the multifrontal method but uses
skeletonization on the separator fronts to sparsify the dense frontal matrices
and thus reduce the cost. We conjecture that this strategy yields linear
complexity in 2D and quasilinear complexity in 3D. Estimated linear complexity
in 3D can be achieved by skeletonizing the compressed fronts themselves, which
amounts geometrically to a recursive dimensional reduction scheme. Numerical
experiments support our claims and further demonstrate the performance of our
algorithm as a fast direct solver and preconditioner. MATLAB codes are freely
available.
