Attosecond shock waves.

Shock-wave formation is a generic scenario of wave dynamics known in nonlinear acoustics, fluid dynamics, astrophysics, seismology, and detonation physics. Here, we show that, in nonlinear optics, remarkably short, attosecond shock transients can be generated through a strongly coupled spatial and temporal dynamics of ultrashort light pulses, suggesting a pulse self-compression scenario whereby multigigawatt attosecond optical waveforms can be synthesized.