  Langevin Dynamics simulations of polymer translocation are performed where
the polymer is stretched via two opposing forces applied on the first and last
monomer before and during translocation. In this setup, polymer translocation
is achieved by imposing a bias between the two pulling forces such that there
is net displacement towards the \textit{trans}-side. Under the influence of
pre-stretching forces, the elongated polymer ensemble contains less variations
in conformations compared to an unstretched ensemble. Simulations demonstrate
that this reduced spread in initial conformations yields a reduced variation in
translocations times relative to the mean translocation time. This effect is
explored for different ratios of the amplitude of thermal fluctuations to
driving forces to control for the relative influence of the thermal path
sampled by the polymer. Since the variance in translocation times is due to
contributions coming from sampling both thermal noise and initial
conformations, our simulations offer independent control over the two main
sources of noise, and allow us to shed light on how they both contribute to
translocation dynamics. Experimentally relevant conditions are highlighted and
shown to correspond to a significant decrease in the spread of translocation
times, thus indicating that stretching DNA prior to translocation could assist
in nanopore-based sequencing and sizing applications.
