example of an rmarkdown document that uses latex syntax in pander table headings

panderlatexpost.Rmd

---
title: "RMarkdown(Pandoc(LaTeX))"
author: "VP Nagraj"
date: "March 3, 2016"
output: 
    html_document:
        keep_md: yes
---

```{r, warning=FALSE, message=FALSE}

# set random seed
set.seed(123)

# set K for number of replications
K <- 1000

# rate (lambda)
lambda <- 3

# n 
n <- c(5, 10, 15, 20, 25)

# simulate data
sims <- lapply(n, function(x) replicate(K, rexp(x, lambda)))

# calculate sample means
sims_mean <- lapply(sims, function(x) apply(x, 2, mean))

# calculate sample variances
sims_var <- lapply(sims, function(x) apply(x, 2, var))


library(pander)
xbars <- sapply(sims_mean, mean)
vars <- sapply(sims_mean, var)
expected_s2 <- sapply(sims_var, mean)

propdata <- data.frame(n = n,
                       xbars = xbars, 
                       vars  = vars,
                       expected_s2 = expected_s2)

# assign names of dataframe with latex syntax 
names(propdata) <- c("n", "$\\mu_{\\bar{x}}$", "$\\sigma^2_{\\bar{x}}$", "$E(s^2)$")

pander(propdata)
```