Covariant representations of Hecke algebras and imprimitivity for crossed products by homogeneous spaces

For discrete Hecke pairs (G,H), we introduce a notion of covariant representation which reduces in the case where H is normal to the usual definition of covariance for the action of G/H on c0(G/H) by right translation; in many cases where G is a semidirect product, it can also be expressed in terms of covariance for a semigroup action. We use this covariance to characterise the representations of c0(G/H) which are multiples of the multiplication representation on ℓ2(G/H), and more generally, we prove an imprimitivity theorem for regular representations of certain crossed products by coactions of homogeneous spaces. We thus obtain new criteria for extending unitary representations from H to G.