  The density matrix renormalization group method is used to investigate the
spin-Peierls transition for Heisenberg spins coupled to quantized phonons. We
use a phonon spectrum that interpolates between a gapped, dispersionless
(Einstein) limit to a gapless, dispersive (Debye) limit. A variety of
theoretical probes are used to determine the quantum phase transition,
including energy gap crossing, a finite size scaling analysis, bond order
auto-correlation functions, and bipartite quantum entanglement. All these
probes indicate that in the antiadiabatic phonon limit a quantum phase
transition of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type is observed at a
non-zero spin-phonon coupling, $g_{\text c}$. An extrapolation from the
Einstein limit to the Debye limit is accompanied by an increase in $g_{\text
c}$ for a fixed optical ($q=\pi $) phonon gap. We therefore conclude that the
dimerized ground state is more unstable with respect to Debye phonons, with the
introduction of phonon dispersion renormalizing the effective spin-lattice
coupling for the Peierls-active mode. We also show that the staggered spin-spin
and phonon displacement order parameters are unreliable means of determining
the transition.
