Fig. 4.

Characteristic transient stretching trajectory and single molecule snapshots. Experimental data shows large magnitude extension fluctuations for ring polymers in extensional flow. a Representative single molecule trajectory for a ring polymer in 1.0 c^* semidilute unentangled linear polymer solution at Wi = 3.0. The characteristic timescale between each peak is 2.8 s corresponding to 4.4 strain units. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. b Single molecule snapshots of the ring polymer corresponding to the trajectory in a, where the Roman numerals correspond to individual time points along the trajectory. Scale bar = 2.5 μm