A Two-Layer Detector-Response Condition for Born-Form Position Counts

This working paper studies a bounded detector-response condition for Born-form position counts. It asks when local wave exposure can be converted into normalized discrete detector-event frequencies proportional to |Psi|^2, without treating the detector response as a black box.The paper proposes a two-layer carrier condition. First, an exposure geometry supplies a detector-coupled nonnegative field q. Second, a calibrated whole-quantum detector converts q into local records through a fair stochastic response, with independently controlled background, efficiency, and memory effects. Under these conditions, normalized calibrated counts converge to normalized exposure shares; when q = C|Psi|^2, the resulting position-count frequencies have Born form.The result is deliberately limited. It does not derive the full Born rule, collapse, arbitrary POVMs, entangled joint statistics, state update, or a universal standing-wave ontology. Its main contribution is a referee-facing sufficiency and failure criterion for one outcome path: calibrated position counts in a fixed detector-readout boundary. The paper also gives a weak local absorber hazard lemma and states explicit reopening conditions involving detector memory, saturation, dead time, afterpulsing, cell mismatch, background drift, and empirical validation.