Generic structure of externally driven tearing modes instabilities

A major limit to steady state and advanced high beta_p operation of tokamaks of reactor class is due to the onset of tearing modes that develop magnetic and may cause loss of energy confinement or a major disruption. Here the structure of a classical problem about the effects of external control helical fields is analysed and it is shown to offer a general paradigm of response of low order classical and neoclassical tearing modes to a wide class of external perturbations. New results of principle on the structural stability of the response model are obtained, leading to a clear interpretation of the role of "seed islands" in the onset of neo-classical tearing modes and the role of finite ion larmor radius corrections to Ohm's law.