Evolution of the transverse structure of the current layer in the linear phase for Runs s14L1600 (red lines), s27L1600 (solid green lines), s27L800 (dashed green lines), and s55L1600 (blue lines). We have calculated the transverse profiles of particle number density (left panels), average particle energy (middle panels), and nonideal electric field (right panels) across the centroid of the current layer. These profiles were fitted with a model consisting of a Gaussian and a constant background. The top panels show the evolution of the amplitude of the Gaussian model, and the bottom panels show the evolution of the width scale in units of ρ₀. Occasional sharp spikes are due to the passage of plasmoids.