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

The large sensitive volume of the Silicon Strip Tracker of CMS detector allows, for a typical track, up to 20 samplings of the specific energy loss by ionization, providing a powerful tool for particle identification at low $\beta\gamma$ values. We report on the application to hadron identification in the first $pp$ collisions recorded by the CMS detector at $\sqrt{s}=$~0.9 and 7~TeV and on applications to other CMS analyses, including the search for highly-ionizing exotic particles.