$re = '/(?<=pow\().*?(?=,2\))/m';
$str = 'pow(alpha,2) + pow(beta,2)
3*pow(betaR_Full,2))
2/pow(betaDFull,3))
-pow(epsilon_gamma,2)+5';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php