The SEA algorithm for endomorphisms of supersingular elliptic curves

TL;DR

This paper generalizes the SEA algorithm to efficiently compute the trace of endomorphisms of supersingular elliptic curves, providing theoretical complexity bounds and practical speedups for cryptographic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new algorithm for computing endomorphism traces on supersingular elliptic curves with proven complexity bounds, extending SEA's capabilities.

Findings

Complexity matches heuristic SEA when L and d are small

Unconditional complexity analysis due to kernel properties

Practical algorithms for trace computation modulo p

Abstract

For a prime $p{\,>\,}3$ and a supersingular elliptic curve $E$ defined over $\mathbb{F}_{p^2}$ with ${j(E)\notin\{0,1728\}}$, consider an endomorphism $\alpha$ of $E$ represented as a composition of $L$ isogenies of degree at most $d$. We prove that the trace of $\alpha$ may be computed in $O(n^4(\log n)^2 + dLn^3)$ bit operations, where $n{\,=\,}\log(p)$, using a generalization of the SEA algorithm for computing the trace of the Frobenius endomorphism of an ordinary elliptic curve. When $L\in O(\log p)$ and $d\in O(1)$, this complexity matches the heuristic complexity of the SEA algorithm. Our theorem is unconditional, unlike the complexity analysis of the SEA algorithm, since the kernel of an arbitrary isogeny of a supersingular elliptic curve is defined over an extension of constant degree, independent of $p$. We also provide practical speedups, including a fast algorithm to compute the trace of $\alpha$ modulo $p$.