Perspectives for top quark physics at LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will provide a huge amount of top-antitop events, making the LHC a top quark factory. Precision measurements in the top quark sector will allow for a detailed study of electroweak (and flavour) symmetry breaking mechanisms. All the properties of the top quark will be obtained, based on the measurement of its mass, cross section and decay branching fraction. The large top quark sample available from the start of LHC will also play an important role in commissioning the ATLAS and CMS detectors during the first data-taking period. A brief overview of the top quark measurements within the Standard Model is given, together with a review of possible new physics scenarios in production and decay mechanisms.