Аннотация:The CASTOR calorimeter is designed for the very forward region (pseudorapidity range from
-6.6 to -5.2) in the CMS experiment at LHC. It will be operated in the low luminosity period of
pp-collisions up to 2x10^33/cm^2/s and in heavy-ion-collisions. The design of the calorimeter is
determined by space constraints inside a shield for radiation and for magnetic field and restricted
to materials which tolerate a high radiation level. The calorimeter surrounds the beam pipe as
a very compact sampling structure of tungsten and quartz plates with a depth of 10 hadronic
interaction lengths. The granularity of 16 transversal segments and 14 longitudinal sections allows
to reconstruct shower profiles, to separate electrons and photons from hadrons and to search for
phenomena with anomalous hadronic energy depositions as expected from exotica. Performance
as measured in test beams, first operation experience and first measurements in the very forward
region of CMS will be presented.