Legendre polynomials and complex multiplication. I. (Q982524)

Let \(p\) be an odd prime and \(P_{\frac{(p-e)}{4}}(x)\) be the Legendre polynomial over the finite field with \(p\) elements. The aim of the paper is to study the factorization of \(P_{\frac{(p-e)}{4}}\). It is shown that the number of distinct, irreducible, binomial quadratic factors is \(\frac{(h(-2p)-d_p)}{4},\) where \(h(-2p)\) is the class number of the field \(\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-2p})\) and \(d_p=2-\left(\frac{-4}{p}\right)-\left(\frac{-8}{p}\right)=0,2,2,4\) according to \(p\equiv 1,3,5,7\pmod{p}\). It is shown that this encodes informations about the supersingular elliptic curves in Legendre normal form which admit the endomorphism \(\sqrt{-2p}.\) This is done by proving an analogue of \textit{M. Deuring}'s theorem [Abh. Math. Sem. Univ. Hamb. 14, 197--272 (1941; Zbl 0025.02003)].