The LHCb Silicon Tracker Performance in pp Collisions at the LHC

The LHCb experiment performs high-precision measurements of CP violation and searches for New Physics using the enormous flux of beauty and charmed hadrons produced at the LHC. The LHCb detector is a single-arm spectrometer with excellent tracking and particle identification capabilities. The Silicon Tracker is part of the tracking system and measures very precisely the particle trajectories coming from the interaction point in the region of high occupancies around the beam axis. It covers a total sensitive area of about 12 m$^2$ using silicon micro-strip technology. This paper reports on the operation and performance of the Silicon Tracker during the Physics data taking at the LHC. First measurements of radiation damage are also shown.