perldoc perlop is your friend...

Exponentiation

Binary "**" is the exponentiation operator.  It binds even more tightl
+y than unary minus,
so -2**4 is -(2**4), not (-2)**4. (This is implemented using C’s pow(3
+) function,
which actually works on doubles internally.)
[download]

Example:

perl -le 'print 2**3'
8
[download]

Cheers,
Darren :)