2021ApJ...910L...9N

We report the first detection of a hydroxyl radical (OH) emission signature in the planetary atmosphere outside the solar system, in this case, in the dayside of WASP-33b. We analyze high-resolution near-infrared emission spectra of WASP-33b taken using the InfraRed Doppler spectrograph on the 8.2 m Subaru telescope. The telluric and stellar lines are removed using a detrending algorithm, SYSREM. The residuals are then cross-correlated with OH and H₂O planetary spectrum templates produced using several different line lists. We check and confirm the accuracy of OH line lists by cross-correlating with the spectrum of GJ 436. As a result, we detect the emission signature of OH at K_p of 230.9_–7.4^+6.9 km s^–1 and v_sys of -0.3_–5.6^+5.3 km s^–1 with a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of 5.4 and a significance of 5.5σ. Additionally, we marginally detect H₂O emission in the H-band with an S/N of 4.0 and a significance of 5.2σ using the POKAZATEL line list. However, no significant signal is detected using the HITEMP 2010, which might be due to differences in line positions and strengths, as well as the incompleteness of the line lists. Nonetheless, this marginal detection is consistent with the prediction that H₂O is mostly thermally dissociated in the upper atmosphere of the ultra-hot Jupiters. Therefore, along with CO, OH is expected to be one of the most abundant O-bearing molecules in the dayside atmosphere of ultra-hot Jupiters and should be considered when studying their atmospheres.