
Differential chromatic refraction (DCR) manifests as a wavelength dependent shift in source positiontowards the zenith of an observer, and must be corrected for in terrestrial surveys to ensure accurateastrometric solutions. Despite this, DCR can also be employed as a tool to extract additional colorinformation from astrometry. M dwarf flares are particularly well suited to this technique due to theirubiquity across various regions of the sky, and the dramatic contrast between the red photosphere andblue flare emission. While flares are challenging targets for sky surveys due to their short durations,DCR can be used to infer color temperatures across the unprecedentedly large sample of flares thatwill be detected in next-generation astronomical surveys, such as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time(LSST) that will be carried out by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, starting in 2025. By combiningRubin’s high image quality and astrometric precision with the truly massive amount of data it will pro-duce over 10 years, DCR can be used to carry out a population-level statistical analysis of stellar flaretemperatures, constraining models of energy release in stellar atmospheres and informing habitabilitysurveys. We additionally validated this technique on flare data obtained from an LSST precursor, theDeeper, Wider, Faster Programme, and showed how certain choices made when modeling the spectraland geometric properties of the flare could lead to overestimating the true flare temperature.
