Relative Kazhdan Property

We perform a systematic investigation of Kazhdan's relative Property (T) for pairs (G,X), where G is a locally compact group and X is any subset. When G is a connected Lie group or a p-adic algebraic group, we provide an explicit characterization of subsets X⊂G such that (G,X) has relative Property (T). In order to extend this characterization to lattices Γ⊂G, a notion of “resolutions” is introduced, and various characterizations of it are given. Special attention is paid to subgroups of SU(2,1) and SO(4,1).