Connectedness of $\beta \mathbb{R}$ I am not very familiar with Stone-Čech compactification, but I would like to understand why the remainder $\beta\mathbb{R}\backslash\mathbb{R}$ has exactly two connected components.

I finally found something:
For convenience, let $X= \mathbb{R} \backslash (-1,1)$. 
First, we show that $(\beta \mathbb{R})\backslash (-1,1)= \beta (\mathbb{R} \backslash (-1,1))$. Let $f_0 : X \to [0,1]$ be a continuous function. Obviously, $f_0$ can be extend to a continuous function $f : \mathbb{R} \to [0,1]$; then we extend $f$ to a continuous function $\tilde{f} : \beta \mathbb{R} \to [0,1]$ and we get by restriction a continuous function $\tilde{f}_0 : (\beta \mathbb{R}) \backslash (-1,1) \to [0,1]$. By the universal property of Stone-Čech compactification, we deduce that $\beta X= (\beta \mathbb{R}) \backslash (-1,1)$.
With the same argument, we show that for an closed interval $I \subset X$, $\beta I = \text{cl}_{\beta X}(I)$.
Let $F_1= \text{cl}_{\beta X} [1,+ \infty)$ and $F_2= \text{cl}_{\beta X} (-\infty,-1]$. Then, $F_1 \cup F_2 = \beta X$, $F_1 \cap F_1= \emptyset$ and $F_1$, $F_2$ are connected.
Indeed, there exists a continuous function $h : X \to \mathbb{R}$ such that $h_{|[1,+ \infty)} \equiv 0$ and $h_{|(-\infty,1]} \equiv 1$, so when we extend $h$ on $\beta X$ we get a continuous function $\tilde{h}$ such that $\tilde{h} \equiv 0$ on $F_1$ and $\tilde{h} \equiv 1$ on $F_2$; therefore $F_1 \cap F_2= \emptyset$. 
Finally, $F_1$ and $F_2$ are connected as closures of connected sets.
So $(\beta \mathbb{R} ) \backslash (-1,1)$ has exactly two connected components; in fact, it is the same thing for $(\beta \mathbb{R}) \backslash (-n,n)$. Because $(\beta \mathbb{R}) \backslash \mathbb{R}= \bigcap\limits_{ n\geq 1 } (\beta \mathbb{R}) \backslash (-n,n)$, we deduce that $(\beta \mathbb{R}) \backslash \mathbb{R}$ has exactly two connected components (the intersection of a non-increasing sequence of connected compact sets is connected).
