Introduction to symmetry-breaking phenomena in physics

The notion of broken symmetries started slowly to emerge in the 19th century. The early studies of Pasteur on the parity asymmetry of life, the studies of Curie on piezoelectricity and on the symmetries of effects versus the symmetry of causes ( which clearly excluded spontaneous symmetry breaking), are important historical landmarks. However the possibility of spontaneous symmetry breaking within the usual principles of statistical mechanics, waited for the work of Peierls and Onsager. The whole theory of phase transitions and critical phenomena, as well as the construction of field theoretic models as long distance limit of yet unknown physics, relies nowadays on the concept of criticality associated to spontaneous symmetry breaking. The phenomena of Goldstone bosons, of Meissner-Higgs effects, are central to the theory of condensed matter as well as to particle physics. In cosmology as well, the various inflationary scenarios begin similarly with this same concept. The three lectures will provide a simple survey of the notion of symmetry breaking in those various fields.