Given a Riemannian ℝℙ3 with a bumpy metric or a metric of positive Ricci curvature, we show that there either exist four distinct minimal real projective planes, or exist one minimal real projective plane together with two distinct minimal 2-spheres.
Our proof is based on a variant multiplicity one theorem for the Simon-Smith min-max theory under certain equivariant settings.
In particular, we show under the positive Ricci assumption that ℝℙ3 contains at least four distinct minimal real projective planes and four distinct minimal tori.
Additionally, the number of minimal tori can be improved to five for a generic positive Ricci metric on ℝℙ3 by the degree method.
Moreover, using the same strategy, we show that in the lens space L(4m,2m±1), m≥1, with a bumpy metric or a metric of positive Ricci curvature, there either exist N(m) numbers of distinct minimal Klein bottles, or exist one minimal Klein bottle and three distinct minimal 2-spheres, where N(1)=4, N(m)=2 for m≥2, and the first case happens under the positive Ricci assumption.