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Abstract

Planetesimal formation is a key process in the formation of planets and up to this day there is no direct observational data to constrain the existing theoretical models. Since the number of detected exoplanets has increased drastically in the last decades it has become possible to use the properties of this population of exoplanets to form constrains for our models in a statistical sense. The framework of population synthesis is therefore a unique and powerful tool to test models for planetesimal formation and bridge the gap of its non observability by connecting the observable initial dust density to the final observable population of planets. Latest results on the formation of planetesimals indicate a much steeper column density profile of planetesimals in protoplanetary disks than the previously assumed one, which originates from the widely used minimum mass solar nebula model. First studies using the Bern model of planet population synthesis indicate that the accretion of large planetesimals (100km) alone is a very efficient growth mechanism that can account for the large diversity in the population of exoplanets.