  Bringing artificial intelligence (AI) alongside next-generation X-ray imaging
detectors, including CCDs and DEPFET sensors, enhances their sensitivity to
achieve many of the flagship science cases targeted by future X-ray
observatories, based upon low surface brightness and high redshift sources.
Machine learning algorithms operating on the raw frame-level data provide
enhanced identification of background vs. astrophysical X-ray events, by
considering all of the signals in the context within which they appear within
each frame. We have developed prototype machine learning algorithms to identify
valid X-ray and cosmic-ray induced background events, trained and tested upon a
suite of realistic end-to-end simulations that trace the interaction of cosmic
ray particles and their secondaries through the spacecraft and detector. These
algorithms demonstrate that AI can reduce the unrejected instrumental
background by up to 41.5 per cent compared with traditional filtering methods.
Alongside AI algorithms to reduce the instrumental background, next-generation
event reconstruction methods, based upon fitting physically-motivated Gaussian
models of the charge clouds produced by events within the detector, promise
increased accuracy and spectral resolution of the lowest energy photon events.
