Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Improved computational methods are essential to the diverse and rapidly developing field of advanced accelerator concepts. We present an overview of some computational algorithms for laser-plasma concepts and high-brightness photocathode electron sources. In particular, we discuss algorithms for reduced laser-plasma models that can be orders of magnitude faster than their higher-fidelity counterparts, as well as important on-going efforts to include relevant additional physics that has been previously neglected. As an example of the former, we present 2D laser wakefield accelerator simulations in an optimal Lorentz frame, demonstrating >10 GeV energy gain of externally injected electrons over a 2 m interaction length, showing good agreement with predictions from scaled simulations and theory, with a speedup factor of ~;;2,000 as compared to standard particle-in-cell.