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In the book The Synthesis of Elements by Giora Shaviv (Springer, 2012) on page 383 is the following set of reactions and statement about alpha-process:

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"The process cannot go beyond iron because, as can be seen from the energies of the reactions, the energies beyond iron are significantly smaller than those before, so if the reactions before iron can go, then those after iron will disintegrate the products much faster and prevent any increase in atomic weight."

I have tried but still don't understand the reasoning.

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    $\begingroup$ See astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/36719/16685 (possible duplicate) $\endgroup$
    – PM 2Ring
    Mar 21 at 11:44
  • $\begingroup$ Also see astronomy.stackexchange.com/q/11880/16685 $\endgroup$
    – PM 2Ring
    Mar 21 at 12:00
  • $\begingroup$ Well, technically an iron isotope fuses to a nickel isotope. But that nickel isotope happens to be stable for seconds, so most people dismiss it as practically and effectively pointless. No one can go into a star, period, much less one going into the supernova process (literally, seconds before), so the explicit verification and any exploitation is left to future supernova miners. $\endgroup$
    – caInstrument
    Mar 21 at 13:14
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    $\begingroup$ Please don't post images of text or mathematics. Your posted material could have been rendered with Mathjax. $\endgroup$
    – StephenG - Help Ukraine
    Mar 21 at 14:57

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