LaTeX recommends \_ as an "escaped" underscore. In other words, "really use the underscore, not a subscript." When I do this in Org-mode and export via =C-e l p=, I don't get that behavior.
Here's my options header: #+OPTIONS: *:t TeX:t LaTeX:t a\_b -> a$\backslash$$_{\text{b}}$ a$\_$b -> a\$\_\$b a $\_$ b -> a $\_$ b What *does* work, is this: a\(\_\)b -> a\_b If this is the best/only way, that's okay. However, if others believe that it should be passed through as \_ to LaTeX, perhaps that's the best way? After all, just passing along _ works to subscript whenever and wherever with my tex:t and latex:t options... perhaps escaping it should also work? An analog might be the use of \$, which escapes the dollar sign and passes it through to appear as a dollar sign in the final document. I suppose I'd make the case that if that's interpreted to be escaping (vs. converting it to $\backslash$$), then perhaps escaping an underscore should be treated the same. Fringe use that I just stumbled on and isn't a critical issue, but I thought I'd mention it.