Status of the CMS Silicon Strip Tracker and commissioning results

The main subsystems of the CMS Silicon Strip Tracker were assembled together in a dedicated large clean room at CERN prior to their installation in the CMS collision hall. Following the integration of the Tracker a long commissioning period took place, during which up to 15% of the silicon modules were operated and read out simultaneously at different temperatures. Some of the achievements of the commissioning phase are discussed in details like Tracker noise performance, signal-to-noise measurements, and hit reconstruction efficiency. The Tracker was inserted in CMS in December 2007 and the commissioning of the full Tracker started. A description of the commissioning procedure followed at CMS and the actual status of the Tracker are presented.