On the Lang-Trotter and Sato-Tate Conjectures on Average for Polynomial Families of Elliptic Curves

Abstract

We show that the reductions modulo primes $p\le x$ of the elliptic curve $$ Y^2 = X^3 + f(a)X + g(b), $$ behave as predicted by the Lang-Trotter and Sato-Tate conjectures, on average over integers $a \in [-A,A]$ and $b \in [-B,B]$ for $A$ and $B$ reasonably small compared to $x$, provided that $f(T), g(T) \in \Z[T]$ are not powers of another polynomial over $\Q$. For $f(T) = g(T) = T$ first results of this kind are due to E. Fouvry and M. R. Murty and have been further extended by other authors. Our technique is different from that of E. Fouvry and M. R. Murty which does not seem to work in the case of general polynomials $f$ and $g$.