Racetracks and extremal problems for curves of bounded curvature in metric spaces

For a closed curve in a CAT(K) space with given circumradius and upper bound on curvature, a basic lower bound on the length is established. The inequality is sharp, assumed only when the curve is the boundary of an isometric copy of a racetrack (the convex hull of two congruent circles) from a plane of constant curvature K. Previously such a theorem was proved for Euclidean plane curves by G. D. Chakerian, H. H. Johnson, and A. Vogt, and for curves in higher dimensional Euclidean spaces by A. D. Milka. A similar theorem is proved for nonclosed curves, with a notion of breadth replacing circumradius. Thus we illustrate how singular methods can extend classical Euclidean theorems to a large class of new spaces (including Riemannian manifolds of curvature bounded above) and also give significant strengthenings even in Euclidean space.