%0 Journal Article %T On the components of spaces of curves on the 2-sphere with geodesic curvature in a prescribed interval %A Nicolau C. Saldanha %A Pedro Z¨¹hlke %J Mathematics %D 2013 %I arXiv %R 10.1142/S0129167X13501012 %X We obtain simple characterizations of the connected components of the space of closed curves on the 2-sphere whose geodesic curvatures are constrained to lie in an open interval $(\kappa_1,\kappa_2)$, in terms of $\kappa_1$ and $\kappa_2$. Many results concerning the topology of these spaces are established. In particular, we determine the homeomorphism class of some of these components. %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.2629v2