Symmetry breaking in superstring theories: applications in cosmology and particle physics

This thesis is devoted to the study of some applications of superstring theory in cosmology and in particle physics. The unifying principle of our work is the stringy spontaneous (super)symmetry breaking mechanism. Our manuscript starts with a general overview of string theory, where the emphasis is put on the aspects that will be important throughout our work. We introduce then our first work, in which we exhibit a new symmetry of the vacua of N = 1 heterotic string theory, exchanging the vectorial and spinorial representations of the grand unified gauge group. In a second part, we consider stringy cosmological evolutions, at non-zero temperature and in the presence of a supersymmetry breaking scale. We also give arguments for a stabilization of the compactification moduli. (author)