On the Surjectivity of Galois Representations Associated to Elliptic Curves over Number Fields

Given an elliptic curve $E$ over a number field $K$, the $\ell$-torsion points $E[\ell]$ of $E$ define a Galois representation $\gal(\bar{K}/K) \to \gl_2(\ff_\ell)$. A famous theorem of Serre states that as long as $E$ has no Complex Multiplication (CM), the map $\gal(\bar{K}/K) \to \gl_2(\ff_\ell)$ is surjective for all but finitely many $\ell$. We say that a prime number $\ell$ is exceptional (relative to the pair $(E,K)$) if this map is not surjective. Here we give a new bound on the largest exceptional prime, as well as on the product of all exceptional primes of $E$. We show in particular that conditionally on the Generalized Riemann Hypothesis (GRH), the largest exceptional prime of an elliptic curve $E$ without CM is no larger than a constant (depending on $K$) times $\log N_E$, where $N_E$ is the absolute value of the norm of the conductor. This answers affirmatively a question of Serre.