Fell bundles and imprimitivity theorems

Our goal in this paper and two sequels is to apply the Yamagami-Muhly-Williams equivalence theorem for Fell bundles over groupoids to recover and extend all known imprimitivity theorems involving groups. Here we extend Raeburn's symmetric imprimitivity theorem, and also, in an appendix, we develop a number of tools for the theory of Fell bundles that have not previously appeared in the literature.