Cumulative density-function of the number of all extrema, maxima (red) and minima (blue), derived from simulations, compared to the equivalent values observed for the SMICA temperature T (left) and the reconstructed E-mode polarization (right). Upper panel: peak counts for maps filtered with a GAUSS kernel of 120′ FWHM. Lower panel: corresponding peak count CDF for the same kernel of 600′ FWHM. Similar results are obtained for the other component-separation methods.