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 km s⁻¹ and v _sys of −0.3 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.

We obtained spectra of the pre-main-sequence star AU Microscopii during a transit of its Neptune-sized planet to investigate its orbit and atmosphere. We used the high-dispersion near-infrared spectrograph InfraRed Doppler (IRD) on the Subaru telescope to detect the Doppler “shadow” from the planet and constrain the projected stellar obliquity. Modeling of the observed planetary Doppler shadow suggests a spin–orbit alignment of the system ( deg), but additional observations are needed to confirm this finding. We use both the IRD data and spectra obtained with NIRSPEC on Keck II to search for absorption in the 1083 nm line of metastable triplet He i by the planet’s atmosphere and place an upper limit for the equivalent width of 3.7 mÅ at 99% confidence. With this limit and a Parker wind model we constrain the escape rate from the atmosphere to M _⊕ Gyr⁻¹, comparable to the rates predicted by an X-ray and ultraviolet energy-limited escape calculation and hydrodynamic models, but refinement of the planet mass is needed for rigorous tests.

In an effort to measure the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect for the TRAPPIST-1 system, we performed high-resolution spectroscopy during transits of planets e, f, and b. The spectra were obtained with the InfraRed Doppler spectrograph on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope, and were supplemented with simultaneous photometry obtained with a 1 m telescope of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope. By analyzing the anomalous radial velocities, we found the projected stellar obliquity to be λ = 1 ± 28° under the assumption that the three planets have coplanar orbits, although we caution that the radial-velocity data show correlated noise of unknown origin. We also sought evidence for the expected deformations of the stellar absorption lines, and thereby detected the “Doppler shadow” of planet b with a false-alarm probability of 1.7%. The joint analysis of the observed residual cross-correlation map including the three transits gave °. These results indicate that the the TRAPPIST-1 star is not strongly misaligned with the common orbital plane of the planets, although further observations are encouraged to verify this conclusion.

We present observations of two bright M dwarfs (TOI-1634 and TOI-1685: J = 9.5–9.6) hosting ultra-short-period (USP) planets identified by the TESS mission. The two stars are similar in temperature, mass, and radius (T _eff ≈ 3500 K, M _⋆ ≈ 0.45–0.46 M _⊙, and R _⋆ ≈ 0.45–0.46 R _⊙), and the planets are both super-Earth size (1.25 R _⊕ < R _p < 2.0 R _⊕). For both systems, light curves from ground-based photometry exhibit planetary transits, whose depths are consistent with those from the TESS photometry. We also refine the transit ephemerides based on the ground-based photometry, finding the orbital periods of P = 0.9893436 ± 0.0000020 days and P = 0.6691416 ± 0.0000019 days for TOI-1634b and TOI-1685b, respectively. Through intensive radial velocity (RV) observations using the InfraRed Doppler (IRD) instrument on the Subaru 8.2 m telescope, we confirm the planetary nature of the TOIs and measure their masses: 10.14 ± 0.95 M _⊕ and 3.43 ± 0.93 M _⊕ for TOI-1634b and TOI-1685b, respectively, when the observed RVs are fitted with a single-planet circular-orbit model. Combining those with the planet radii of R _p = 1.749 ± 0.079 R _⊕ (TOI-1634b) and 1.459 ± 0.065 R _⊕ (TOI-1685b), we find that both USP planets have mean densities consistent with an Earth-like internal composition, which is typical for small USP planets. TOI-1634b is currently the most massive USP planet in this category, and it resides near the radius valley, which makes it a benchmark planet in the context of discussing the size limit of rocky planet cores as well as testing the formation scenarios for USP planets. Excess scatter in the RV residuals for TOI-1685 suggests the presence of a possible secondary planet or unknown activity/instrumental noise in the RV data, but further observations are required to check those possibilities.

We obtained high-resolution spectra of the ultracool M-dwarf TRAPPIST-1 during the transit of its planet “b” using two high-dispersion near-infrared spectrographs, the Infrared Doppler (IRD) instrument on the Subaru 8.2m telescope, and the Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF) instrument on the 10 m Hobby–Eberly Telescope. These spectroscopic observations are complemented by a photometric transit observation for planet “b” using the APO/ARCTIC, which assisted us in capturing the correct transit times for our transit spectroscopy. Using the data obtained by the new IRD and HPF observations, as well as the prior transit observations of planets “b,” “e” and “f” from IRD, we attempt to constrain the atmospheric escape of the planet using the He i triplet 10830 Å absorption line. We do not detect evidence for any primordial extended H-He atmospheres in all three planets. To limit any planet-related absorption, we place an upper limit on the equivalent widths of <7.754 mÅ for planet “b,” <10.458 mÅ for planet “e,” <4.143 mÅ for planet “f” at 95% confidence from the IRD data, and <3.467 mÅ for planet “b” at 95% confidence from HPF data. Using these limits along with a solar-like composition isothermal Parker wind model, we attempt to constrain the mass-loss rates for the three planets. For TRAPPIST-1b, our models exclude the highest possible energy-limited rate for a wind temperature <5000 K. This nondetection of extended atmospheres with low mean-molecular weights in all three planets aids in further constraining their atmospheric composition by steering the focus toward the search of high-molecular-weight species in their atmospheres.

We present the discovery and validation of a temperate sub-Neptune around the nearby mid-M dwarf TIC 470381900 (TOI-1696), with a radius of 3.09 ± 0.11 R _⊕ and an orbital period of 2.5 days, using a combination of Transiting Exoplanets Survey Satellite (TESS) and follow-up observations using ground-based telescopes. Joint analysis of multiband photometry from TESS, Multicolor Simultaneous Camera for studying Atmospheres of Transiting exoplanets (MuSCAT), MuSCAT3, Sinistro, and KeplerCam confirmed the transit signal to be achromatic as well as refined the orbital ephemeris. High-resolution imaging with Gemini/’Alopeke and high-resolution spectroscopy with the Subaru InfraRed Doppler (IRD) confirmed that there are no stellar companions or background sources to the star. The spectroscopic observations with IRD and Infrared Telescope Facility SpeX were used to determine the stellar parameters, and it was found that the host star is an M4 dwarf with an effective temperature of T _eff = 3185 ± 76 K and a metallicity of [Fe/H] = 0.336 ± 0.060 dex. The radial velocities measured from IRD set a 2σ upper limit on the planetary mass to be 48.8 M _⊕. The large radius ratio (R _p/R _⋆ ∼ 0.1) and the relatively bright near-infrared magnitude (J = 12.2 mag) make this planet an attractive target for further follow-up observations. TOI-1696 b is one of the planets belonging to the Neptunian desert with the highest transmission spectroscopy metric discovered to date, making it an interesting candidate for atmospheric characterizations with JWST.