  Spiral waves are a ubiquitous feature of the nonequilibrium dynamics of a
great variety of excitable systems. In the limit of a large separation in
timescale between fast excitation and slow recovery, one can reduce the spiral
problem to one involving the motion of a free surface separating the excited
and quiescent phases. In this work, we study the free surface problem in the
limit of small diffusivity for the slow field variable. Specifically, we show
that a previously found spiral solution in the diffusionless limit can be
extended to finite diffusivity, without significant alteration. This extension
involves the creation of a variety of boundary layers which cure all the
undesirable singularities of the aforementioned solution. The implications of
our results for the study of spiral stability are briefly discussed.
