Deterministic methods for finding elements of large multiplicative order

We revisit the problem of rigorously and deterministically finding elements of large order in the multiplicative group of integers modulo a natural number $N$. Solving this problem is an essential step in several recent deterministic algorithms for factoring $N$, including the currently fastest ones. In 2018, the second author gave an algorithm that for a given target order $D \geq N^{2/5}$, finds either an element of order exceeding $D$, or a nontrivial divisor of $N$, or proves that $N$ is prime. The running time was $$O\left(\frac{D^{1/2}}{(\log \log D)^{1/2}} \log^2 N \right)$$ bit operations, asymptotically the same as the cost of computing the order of a single element using Sutherland's optimisation of the classical babystep-giantstep method. Subsequent work by several authors weakened the hypothesis $D \geq N^{2/5}$ to $D \geq N^{1/6}$. In this paper, we show that the hypothesis may be dropped altogether. Moreover, if $N$ is prime, we can guarantee returning an element of order exceeding $D$, rather than a proof that $N$ is prime.