Variational aspects of the geodesics problem in sub-Riemannian geometry (Q5947295)

A sub-Riemannian manifold is a differentiable manifold of dimension \(n\) with a distribution of constant rank carrying a Riemannian metric. A curve is called \textit{horizontal,} if it is everywhere tangent to the distribution. For a horizontal curve the \textit{length} is defined. In this paper a variational theory for the extremals of the length functional is developed. In particular it is shown that a regular curve joining two fixed submanifolds is a critical point of the sub-Riemannian action functional if and only if it is a normal geodesic. This generalizes a result of \textit{J.-M. Bismut} [Large Deviations and the Malliavin Calculus, Birkhäuser (1984; Zbl 0537.35003), Th. 1.17] whose proof is given in the context of the Malliavin calculus.