Sine-gordon breathers and formation of extreme waves in self-induced transparency media

We investigate the formation of optical extreme waves in a resonant two-level medium that entails the self-induced transparency (SIT) effect, within the framework of the sine-Gordon equation. By virtue of the exact breather solutions and numerical simulations, we reveal that the extreme waves may occur as a result of an intense interaction between individual breather components, by an optimal choice of the breathing periods and the propagation directions for each component. We expect that this work may stimulate the experimental study of the extreme wave formation in SIT media.