Fig. 3

Quantification of out-of-equilibrium trapping dynamics, linear velocity-displacement relationship and exponential relaxation dynamics following initial perturbation. a Snapshots showing a 3-\(\mu\)m particle in water displaced from the stagnation point by an amount \(\delta r\), causing the flows to reorient and counteract this displacement (Additional file 3: Video SV3). b Exponential approach of the displaced particle in a 50:50 water:glycerol mixture. c Plotting the mean of the five acquisitions in b reveals the linear velocity-displacement relationship near the stagnation point. The shaded region represents the calculated standard deviation. d Negative linear velocity-displacement relationship near the symmetry axis and close to the stagnation point, extracted from repeatedly performing the analysis in c. The slope provides another estimate of the confinement strength, agreeing closely with the trap stiffness in Fig. 2c. The errors have been calculated via linear regression and the error in the trap stiffness was inferred from the fractional error in the slope