The frequency of elliptic curve groups over prime finite fields

Abstract: Letting

p

vary over all primes and

E

vary over all elliptic curves over the finite field

m a t h b b F_{p}

, we study the frequency to which a given group

G

arises as a group of points

E (m a t h b b F_{p})

. It is well-known that the only permissible groups are of the form

G_{m, k} := m a t h b b Z / m m a t h b b Z i m e s m a t h b b Z / m k m a t h b b Z

. Given such a candidate group, we let

M (G_{m, k})

be the frequency to which the group

G_{m, k}

arises in this way. Previously, the second and fourth named authors determined an asymptotic formula for

M (G_{m, k})

assuming a conjecture about primes in short arithmetic progressions. In this paper, we prove several unconditional bounds for

M (G_{m, k})

, pointwise and on average. In particular, we show that

M (G_{m, k})

is bounded above by a constant multiple of the expected quantity when

m l e k^{A}

and that the conjectured asymptotic for

M (G_{m, k})

holds for almost all groups

G_{m, k}

when

m l e k^{1 / 4 - e p s i l o n}

. We also apply our methods to study the frequency to which a given integer

N

arises as the group order

.

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