Inserting Vertical Space in Pandoc Markdown

Question

Is it possible to insert a extra vertical space using Pandoc flavored Markdown? Something that would show up as a blank line in a Word document or a <br> in HTML or \vspace in LaTeX. Or anything equivalent?

My problem is that I don't want a title for my reference list, but this puts my references too close to the preceding paragraph in both Word and in LaTeX.

Answer 1

One way to do it is to insert a paragraph containing just a nonbreaking space.

You can use either of these forms in pandoc:

\_ (where "_" signifies a space)    

Answer 2

For pdf, do the following (replace the s with space): \s\s