On the distribution of Atkin and Elkies primes for reductions of elliptic curves on average

For an elliptic curve E/Q without complex multiplication we study the distribution of Atkin and Elkies primes l, on average, over all good reductions of E modulo primes p. We show that, under the Generalised Riemann Hypothesis, for almost all primes p there are enough small Elkies primes l to ensure that the Schoof-Elkies-Atkin point-counting algorithm runs in (log p)^(4+o(1)) expected time.

Finding elliptic curves with a subgroup of prescribed size

Assuming the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis, we design a deterministic algorithm that, given a prime p and positive integer m=o(sqrt(p)/(log p)^4), outputs an elliptic curve E over the finite field F_p for which the cardinality of E(F_p) is divisible by m. The running time of the algorithm is mp^(1/2+o(1)), and this leads to more efficient constructions of rational functions over F_p whose image is small relative to p. We also give an unconditional version of the algorithm that works for almost all primes p, and give a probabilistic algorithm with subexponential time complexity.