Abstract. We propose new squaring formulae for cyclotomic subgroups of certain finite fields. Our formulae use a compressed representation of elements having the property that decompression can be performed at a very low cost. The squaring formulae lead to new exponentiation algorithms in cyclotomic subgroups which outperform the fastest previously-known exponentiation algorithms when the exponent has low Hamming weight. Our algorithms can be adapted to accelerate the final exponentiation step of pairing computations. 1.

We extend the torus-based compression technique for cyclotomic subgroups and show how the elements of certain subgroups in characteristic two and three fields can be compressed by a factor of 4 and 6, respectively. Our compression and decompression functions can be computed at a negligible cost. In particular, our techniques lead to very efficient exponentiation algorithms that work with the compressed representations of elements and can be easily incorporated into pairing-based protocols that require exponentiations or products of pairings.