  We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of an isolated polymer in a
stationary elongational flow. We compute the relaxation time to the
steady-state configuration as a function of the Weissenberg number. A strong
increase of the relaxation time is found around the coil-stretch transition,
which is attributed to the large number of polymer configurations. The
relaxation dynamics of the polymer is solved analytically in terms of a central
two-point connection problem for the singly confluent Heun equation.
