High order elements in finite fields arising from recursive towers

We illustrate a general technique to construct towers of fields producing high order elements in 𝔽_q^2^n , for odd q , and in 𝔽_2^2 · 3^n , for n ≥ 1 . These towers are obtained recursively by x_n^2 + x_n = v(x_n - 1) , for odd q , or x_n^3 + x_n = v(x_n - 1) , for q=2 , where v ( x ) is a polynomial of small degree over the prime field 𝔽_q and x_n belongs to the finite field extension 𝔽_q^2^n , for an odd q , or to 𝔽_2^2· 3^n . Several examples are provided to show the numerical efficacy of our method. Using the techniques of Burkhart et al. (Des Codes Cryptogr 51(3):301–314, 2009) we prove similar lower bounds on the orders of the groups generated by x_n , or by the discriminant δ _n of the polynomial. We also provide a general framework which can be used to produce many different examples, with the numerical performance of our best examples being slightly better than in the cases analyzed in Burkhart et al. (2009).