We study the complexity of automatic structures via well-established concepts
from both logic and model theory, including ordinal heights (of well-founded
relations), Scott ranks of structures, and Cantor-Bendixson ranks (of trees).
We prove the following results: 1) The ordinal height of any automatic well-
founded partial order is bounded by \omega^\omega ; 2) The ordinal heights of
automatic well-founded relations are unbounded below the first non-computable
ordinal; 3) For any computable ordinal there is an automatic structure of Scott
rank at least that ordinal. Moreover, there are automatic structures of Scott
rank the first non-computable ordinal and its successor; 4) For any computable
ordinal, there is an automatic successor tree of Cantor-Bendixson rank that
ordinal.Comment: 23 pages. Extended abstract appeared in Proceedings of TAMC '08, LNCS
4978 pp 514-52
