Criticality manifolds and their role in the generation of solitary waves for two-layer flow with a free surface

The role of criticality manifolds is explored both for the classification of all uniform flows and for the bifurcation of solitary waves, in the context of two fluid layers of differing density with an upper free surface. While the weakly nonlinear bifurcation of solitary waves in this context is well known, it is shown herein that the critical nonlinear behaviour of the bifurcating solitary waves and generalized solitary waves is determined by the geometry of the criticality manifolds. By parametrizing all uniform flows, new physical results are obtained on the implication of a velocity difference between the two layers on the bifurcating solitary waves.