Let
$E$ be an elliptic curve defined over
$\mathbb{Q}$ and without complex multiplication. Let
$K$ be a fixed imaginary quadratic field. We find nontrivial upper bounds for the number of ordinary primes
$p\,\le \,x$ for which
$\mathbb{Q}\left( {{\pi }_{p}} \right)\,=\,K$, where
${{\pi }_{p}}$ denotes the Frobenius endomorphism of
$E$ at
$p$. More precisely, under a generalized Riemann hypothesis we show that this number is
${{O}_{E}}\left( {{x}^{17/18}}\,\log x \right)$, and unconditionally we show that this number is
${{O}_{E,K}}\left( \frac{x{{\left( \log \,\log x \right)}^{13/12}}}{{{\left( \log x \right)}^{25/24}}} \right)$ We also prove that the number of imaginary quadratic fields
$K$, with − disc
$K\,\le \,x$ and of the form
$K\,=\,\mathbb{Q}({{\pi }_{p}})$, is
${{\gg }_{E}}\,\log \,\log \,\log \,x$ for
$x\,\ge \,{{x}_{0}}\left( E \right)$. These results represent progress towards a 1976 Lang–Trotter conjecture.