I understand how it can be concluded heavier elements than iron don't fuse. Seems to me the ability to form heavier elements would be proportional to the size of the star.

 

Baryonic mater has quantititave propperties, therefor there is an upper limit to atomic neclitides size. I postulate that once this upper limit is achieved, dark matter becomes a product of the fusion process. It's easy for me to concieve dark matter production, correlates to super novae episodes.

 

At best I have a rudimentary understanding of thermo-dynamics, can't substantiate this hypothisis, its a gut feeling...

The best evidence is that dark matter isn't baryonic. This idea would also probably not explain the distribution of it.

Each isotope has mass.

It can be found on wikipedia f.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_iron(replace iron by name of any element).

It is given in mass atomic unit denoted "u".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_mass_unit

f.e. Hydrogen-1 has 1.00784 u.

 

( mass of 1st particle + mass of 2nd particle that fuse ) * c^2 + their kinetic energy = total input energy.

 

Similar with output products:

 

( mass of 1st product particle + mass of 2nd product particle of fusion ) * c^2 + their kinetic energy = total output energy.

 

If total output energy is higher than total input energy, then simply such reaction cannot happen, as it would violate energy conservation.

 

Basically there is no existing stable isotope with Z=52 (Tellurium), that would let two irons (with Z=26) to fuse together.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_tellurium

 

The first (observatory) stable Tellurium isotope has A=120 (68 neutrons). But two Iron-56 can only give Z=52,A=112..

Edited April 20, 201510 yr by Sensei