Curvature: A variational approach

The curvature discussed in this paper is a rather far going generalization of the Riemannian sectional curvature. We define it for a wide class of optimal control problems: a unified framework including geometric structures such as Riemannian, sub-Riemannian, Finsler and sub-Finsler structures; a special attention is paid to the sub-Riemannian (or Carnot-Caratheodory) metric spaces. Our construction of the curvature is direct and naive, and it is similar to the original approach of Riemann. Surprisingly, it works in a very general setting and, in particular, for all sub-Riemannian spaces.
120 pages, 12 figures, (v2) minor revision; (v3) new sections on Finsler manifolds, slow growth distributions, Heisenberg group; (v4) major revision, new extended section on 3D contact structures, constant curvature, improved results about existence of ample geodesics on SR structures, 2 new appendices, many minor revisions; (v5) 1 new appendix, minor revisions