Minimal surfaces with arbitrary genus in 3-spheres of positive Ricci curvature

Abstract: We describe some topological structure in the set of all surfaces with finitely many singularities in the 3-sphere. As an application, we prove that every Riemannian 3-sphere of positive Ricci curvature contains, for every g, a genus g embedded minimal surface with area at most twice the first Simon-Smith width of the ambient 3-sphere.