Explicit isogenies in quadratic time in any characteristic

Abstract: Consider two elliptic curves $E,E'$ defined over the finite field $\mathbb{F}_q$, and suppose that there exists an isogeny $\psi$ between $E$ and $E'$. We propose an algorithm that determines $\psi$ from the knowledge of $E$, $E'$ and of its degree $r$, by using the structure of the $\ell$-torsion of the curves (where $\ell$ is a prime different from the characteristic $p$ of the base field). Our approach is inspired by a previous algorithm due to Couveignes, that involved computations using the $p$-torsion on the curves. The most refined version of that algorithm, due to De Feo, has a complexity of $\tilde{O}(r^2) p^{O(1)}$ base field operations. On the other hand, the cost of our algorithm is $\tilde{O}(r^2 + \sqrt{r} \log(q))$; this makes it an interesting alternative for the medium- and large-characteristic cases.