We report on the time-resolved observation of transient laser-induced breakdown (LIB) during the leading edge of high-intensity petawatt-class laser pulses with peak intensities up to 6x10^21 W/cm^2 in interaction with dielectric cryogenic hydrogen jet targets. The results show that LIB occurs much earlier than what is typically expected following the concept of barrier suppression ionization and that the laser pulse duration dependence of LIB and laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) is very relevant to high-intensity laser-solid interactions. We demonstrate an effective approach to determine the onset of LIB, i.e. the starting point of target pre-expansion, by comparing a laser contrast measurement with a characterization study of the target specific LIB thresholds.
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