While the understanding of altermagnetism is still at a very early stage, it is expected to play a role in

various fields of condensed matter research, for example spintronics, caloritronics and

superconductivity. In the field of optical magnetism, it is still unclear to which extent altermagnets as a

class can exhibit a distinct behavior. Here we choose RuO2, a prototype metallic altermagnet with a

giant spin splitting, and CoF2, an experimentally known insulating altermagnet, to study the lightinduced

magnetism in rutile altermagnets from first-principles. We demonstrate that in the nonrelativisic

limit the allowed sublattice-resolved orbital response exhibits symmetries, imposed by

altermagnetism, which lead to a drastic canting of light-induced moments. On the other hand, we find

that inclusion of spin-orbit interaction enhances the overall effect drastically, introduces a significant

anisotropy with respect to the light polarization and strongly suppresses the canting of induced

moments. Remarkably, we observe that the moments induced by linearly-polarized laser pulses in

light altermagnets can even exceed in magnitude those predicted for heavy ferromagnets exposed to

circularly polarized light. By resorting to microscopic tools we interpret our results in terms of the

altermagnetic spin splittings and of their reciprocal space distribution. Based on our findings, we

speculate that optical excitations may provide a unique tool to switch and probe the magnetic state of

rutile altermagnets.

‍