Timing performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter and prospects for the future

The CMS electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) is made of 75,848 scintillating lead tungstate crystals arranged in a barrel and two endcaps. The scintillation light is read out by avalanche photodiodes in the barrel and vacuum phototriodes in the endcaps, at which point the scintillation pulse is amplified and sampled at 40 MHz by the on-detector electronics. The fast signal from the crystal scintillation enables energy as well as timing measurements from the data collected in proton-proton collisions with high energy electrons and photons. The single-channel time resolution of ECAL measured at beam tests for high energy showers is better than 100 ps. The timing resolution achieved with the data collected in proton-proton collisions at the LHC is discussed. We present how precision timing is used in current physics measurements and discuss studies of subtle calorimetric effects, such as the timing response of different crystals belonging to the same electromagnetic shower. In addition, we present prospects for the high luminosity phase of the LHC (HL-LHC), where we expect an average of 140 concurrent interactions per bunch crossing (pile-up). We discuss studies on how precision time information could be exploited for pileup mitigation and for the assignment of the collision vertex for photons. In this respect, a detailed understanding of the timing performance and of the limiting factors in time resolution are areas of ongoing studies.