Transmission-phase measurement of the 0.7 anomaly in a quantum point contact

We measure the transmission phase of a quantum point contact (QPC) at a low carrier density in which electron interaction is expected to play an important role and anomalous behaviors are observed. In the first conductance plateau, the transmission phase shifts monotonically as the carrier density is decreased by the gate voltage. When the conductance starts to decrease, in what is often called the 0.7 regime, the phase exhibits an anomalous increase compared with the noninteracting model. The observation implies an increase in the wave vector as the carrier density is decreased, suggesting a transition to a spin-incoherent Luttinger liquid.