We examine the role of centrifugal effects during nonadiabatic interactions of charged particles with the magnetotail current sheet. It is shown that when the parameter &kgr; (defined as the square root of the minimum curvature radius-to-maximum Larmor radius) is of the order of unity, as is the case for ions traveling in the near-Earth plasma sheet, enhanced centrifugal effects lead to prominent bunching of the particles in gyration phase. As a result of this bunching effect we demonstrate that a thin current sheet develops in the vicinity of the tail midplane. When average values of the plasma density (a few tenths of ions per cubic centimeter) and temperature (several keV) in the near-Earth tail are used, the current sheet obtained has a characteristic thickness of the order of a few tenths of an Earth radius and leads to significant stretching of the local magnetic field lines. A further consequence of phase bunching is the buildup of a substantial current in the Earth-tail direction at low latitudes, which leads to field line inclination in the dawn-dusk direction. This phase bunching mechanism, which maximizes when the bulk of the ion distribution nears &kgr;=1, is of potential importance for the dynamics of the inner plasma sheet during the growth phase of substorms.¿ 1996 American Geophysical Union