We discuss entanglement generation in a closed system of one or two atomic quantum dots (qubits) coupled via Raman transitions to a pool of cold interacting bosons. The system exhibits rich entanglement dynamics, which we analyze in detail in an exact quantum mechanical treatment of the problem. The bipartite setup of only one atomic quantum dot coupled to a pool of bosons turns out to be equivalent to two qubits which easily get entangled being initially in a product state. We show that both

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... e number of bosons in the pool and the boson-boson interaction crucially affect the entanglement characteristics of the system. The tripartite system of two atomic quantum dots and a pool of bosons reduces to a qubit-qutrit-qubit realization. We consider entanglement possibilities of the pure system as well as of reduced ones by tracing out one of the constituents, and show how the entanglement can be controlled by varying system parameters. We demonstrate that the qutrit, as expected, plays a leading role in entangling of the two qubits and the maximum entanglement depends in a nontrivial way on the pool characteristics.