Particle identification with ionization energy loss in the CMS Silicon Strip Tracker

The large sensitive volume of the Silicon Strip Tracker of the CMS detector allows up to 20 samplings of ionization energy loss for a typical track, providing a powerful tool for particle identification in the $0.2<\beta<0.9$ regime. We report on the application to hadron identification with the $pp$ collisions recorded by CMS during the 2009-2010 run at $\sqrt{s} = 0.9$ and $7$~TeV, on the validation of the method with constrained decays of known resonances, and on the future prospects for searches of highly-ionizing exotic particles.