On the existence and non-existence of elliptic pseudoprimes

Abstract:

In a series of papers, D. Gordon and C. Pomerance demonstrated that pseudoprimes on elliptic curves behave in many ways very similar to pseudoprimes related to Lucas sequences. In this paper we give an answer to a challenge that was posted by D. Gordon in 1989. The challenge was to either prove that a certain composite $N \equiv 1 \bmod 4$ did not exist, or to explicitly calculate such a number. In this paper, we both present such a specific composite (for Gordon’s curve with CM by $\mathbb {Q}(\sqrt {-7})$), as well as a proof of the non-existence (for curves with CM by $\mathbb {Q}(\sqrt {-3}$)). We derive some criteria for the group structure of CM curves that allow testing for all composites, including $N \equiv 3 \bmod 4$ which had been excluded by Gordon. This gives rise to another type of examples of composites where strong elliptic pseudoprimes are not Euler elliptic pseudoprimes.