  Precise measurements of chemical abundances in planetary atmospheres are
necessary to constrain the formation histories of exoplanets. A recent study of
WASP-127b, a close-in puffy sub-Saturn orbiting its solar-type host star in 4.2
d, using HST and Spitzer revealed a feature-rich transmission spectrum with
strong excess absorption at 4.5 um. However, the limited spectral resolution
and coverage of these instruments could not distinguish between CO and/or CO2
absorption causing this signal, with both low and high C/O ratio scenarios
being possible. Here we present near-infrared (0.9--2.5 um) transit
observations of WASP-127 b using the high-resolution SPIRou spectrograph, with
the goal to disentangle CO from CO2 through the 2.3 um CO band. With SPIRou, we
detect H2O at a t-test significance of 5.3 sigma and observe a tentative (3
sigma) signal consistent with OH absorption. From a joint SPIRou + HST +
Spitzer retrieval analysis, we rule out a CO-rich scenario by placing an upper
limit on the CO abundance of log10[CO]<-4.0, and estimate a log10[CO2] of
-3.7^(+0.8)_(-0.6), which is the level needed to match the excess absorption
seen at 4.5um. We also set abundance constraints on other major C-, O-, and
N-bearing molecules, with our results favoring low C/O (0.10^(+0.10)_(-0.06)),
disequilibrium chemistry scenarios. We further discuss the implications of our
results in the context of planet formation. Additional observations at high and
low-resolution will be needed to confirm these results and better our
understanding of this unusual world.
