$re = '/(\\\\{2}sin|cos|tan|sec|log)([^^]*)(\^\{[^}]*\})/';
$str = '\\\\sin\\\\left(x\\\\right)^{2}';
$subst = "\1\3\2";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str, 1);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
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