Electroweak and Top physics at ATLAS

The observation of top quark pair (tt) production is one of the key milestones for the early LHC physics programme. The abundant tt sample which is expected to be produced in the first years of data-taking can be exploited for improving many aspects of detector performance. Furthermore, tt production is an important background in various searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM), and new physics may also give rise to additional tt production mechanisms or modification of the top quark decay channels. The talk will focus on the recent first measurement of the top production cross-section of ATLAS, but also cover the prospects for other interesting top quark measurements that are yet to come.