ASTRID simulation forecasts what Rubin Observatory will see

Using the ASTRID hydrodynamical simulation, the team computed galaxy magnitudes by pairing stellar population synthesis with a dust attenuation model tied to metal surface density, calibrated against SDSS data at z = 0 and validated up to z = 1.5 in multiple optical bands. The resulting luminosity functions match observed galaxy statistics across wavelengths and redshifts. From this framework they built mock photometric catalogs covering 0 ≤ z ≤ 2 with roughly 378 million galaxies, complete with predicted apparent magnitudes in all six LSST bands and Schechter-function fits tracking how survey depth evolves from Year 1 to Year 10.