  Light as a carrier of information and energy plays a fundamental role in both
general relativity and quantum physics, linking these areas that are still not
fully compliant with each other. Its quantum nature and spatio-temporal
structure are exploited in many intriguing applications ranging from novel
spectroscopy methods of complex many-body phenomena to quantum information
processing and subwavelength lithography. Recent access to subcycle quantum
features of electromagnetic radiation promises a new class of time-dependent
quantum states of light. Paralleled with the developments in attosecond
science, these advances motivate an urgent need for a theoretical framework
that treats arbitrary wave packets of quantum light intrinsically in the time
domain. Here, we formulate a consistent time domain theory of the generation
and sampling of few-cycle and subcycle pulsed squeezed states, allowing for a
relativistic interpretation in terms of induced changes in the local flow of
time. Our theory enables the use of such states as a resource for novel
ultrafast applications in quantum optics and quantum information.
