A two variable Artin conjecture

Let a and b be non-zero rational numbers that are multiplicatively independent. We study the natural density of the set of primes p for which the subgroup of the multiplicative group of the finite field with p elements generated by (a\mod p) contains (b\mod p). It is shown that, under assumption of the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH), this density exists and equals a positive rational multiple of the universal constant S=\prod_{p prime}(1-p/(p^3-1)). An explicit value of the density is given under mild conditions on a and b. This extends and corrects earlier work of P.J. Stephens (1976). Our result, in combination with earlier work of the second author, allows us to deduce that any second order linear recurrence with reducible characteristic polynomial having integer elements, has a positive density of prime divisors (under GRH)

Constructing elliptic curves of prime order

We present a very efficient algorithm to construct an elliptic curve E and a finite field F such that the order of the point group E(F) is a given prime number N. Heuristically, this algorithm only takes polynomial time Otilde((\log N)^3), and it is so fast that it may profitably be used to tackle the related problem of finding elliptic curves with point groups of prime order of prescribed size. We also discuss the impact of the use of high level modular functions to reduce the run time by large constant factors and show that recent gonality bounds for modular curves imply limits on the time reduction that can be obtained.Comment: 13 page