  We study a particular approach for analyzing worldsheet conformal invariance
for bosonic string propagating in a curved background using hamiltonian
formalism. We work in the Schrodinger picture of a single particle description
of the problem where the particle moves in an infinite-dimensional space.
Background independence is maintained in this approach by adopting DeWitt's
(Phys.Rev.85:653-661,1952) coordinate independent formulation of quantum
mechanics. This enables us to construct certain background independent notion
of Virasoro generators, called DeWitt-Virasoro (DWV) generators, and invariant
matrix elements of an arbitrary operator constructed out of them in spin-zero
representation. We show that the DWV algebra is given by the Witt algebra with
additional anomalous terms that vanish for Ricci-flat backgrounds. The actual
quantum Virasoro generators should be obtained by first introducing the vacuum
state and then normal ordering the DWV generators with respect to that. We
demonstrate the procedure in the simple cases of flat and pp-wave backgrounds.
This is a shorter version of arXiv:0912.3987 [hep-th] with many technical
derivations omitted.
