What causes a sonic boom?

You can learn a lot about sonic booms by looking at the wakes

boats leave in the water.
If you toss a pebble in a pond, little waves will form in concentric
circles and propagate away from the point of impact. If a boat
travels through the pond at 3 to 5 miles per hour, little waves will
propagate in the same way both ahead of and behind the boat,
and the boat will travel through them.
If a boat travels faster than the waves can propagate through
water, then the waves "can't get out of the way" of the boat fast
enough, and they form a wake. A wake is a larger single wave. It is formed out of all the little waves that
would have propagated ahead of the boat but could not.

When an airplane travels through the air, it produces sound waves. If the plane is traveling slower than
the speed of sound (the speed of sound varies, but 700 mph is typical through air), then sound waves
can propagate ahead of the plane. If the plane breaks the sound barrier and flies faster than the speed
of sound, it produces a sonic boom when it flies past. The boom is the "wake" of the plane's sound
waves. All of the sound waves that would have normally propagated ahead of the plane are combined
together so at first you hear nothing, and then you hear the boom they create.
It is just like being on the shore of a smooth lake when a boat speeds past. There is no disturbance in the
water as the boat comes by, but eventually a large wave from the wake rolls onto shore. When a plane
flies past at supersonic speeds the exact same thing happens, but instead of the large wake wave, you
get a sonic boom.

A sonic boom is the sound associated with the shock waves created whenever an object traveling
through the air travels faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate significant amounts
of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion or a thunderclap to the human ear. The crack of a
supersonic bullet passing overhead or the crack of a bullwhip are examples of a sonic boom in
miniature.[2]
Sonic booms due to large supersonic aircraft can be particularly loud and startling, tend to awaken
people, and may cause minor damage to some structures. They led to prohibition of routine supersonic
flight over land. Although they cannot be completely prevented, research suggests that with careful
shaping of the vehicle the nuisance due to them may be reduced to the point that overland supersonic
flight may become a practical option.
A sonic boom does not occur only at the moment an object crosses the speed of sound; and neither is it
heard in all directions emanating from the speeding object. Rather the boom is a continuous effect that
occurs while the object is travelling at supersonic speeds. But it only affects observers that are
positioned at a point that intersects a region in the shape of geometrical cone behind the object. As the
object moves, this conical region also moves behind it and when the cone passes over the observer, they
will briefly experience the boom.
When an aircraft passes through the air it creates a series of pressure waves in front of it and behind it,
similar to the bow and stern waves created by a boat. These waves travel at the speed of sound and, as
the speed of the object increases, the waves are forced together, or compressed, because they cannot
get out of each other's way quickly enough. Eventually they merge into a single shock wave, which
travels at the speed of sound, a critical speed known as Mach 1, and is approximately 1,235 km/h
(767 mph) at sea level and 20 °C (68 °F).
In smooth flight, the shock wave starts at the nose of the aircraft and ends at the tail. Because the
different radial directions around the aircraft's direction of travel are equivalent (given the "smooth
flight" condition), the shock wave forms a Mach cone, similar to a vapour cone, with the aircraft at its
tip. The half-angle between direction of flight and the shock wave  is given by: