  We identify near-infrared Ks band counterparts to Herschel-ATLAS sub-mm
sources, using a preliminary object catalogue from the VISTA VIKING survey. The
sub-mm sources are selected from the H-ATLAS Phase 1 catalogue of the GAMA 9h
field, which includes all objects detected at 250, 350 or 500 um with the SPIRE
instrument. We apply and discuss a likelihood ratio (LR) method for VIKING
candidates within a search radius of 10" of the 22,000 SPIRE sources with a 5
sigma detection at 250 um. We find that 11,294(51%) of the SPIRE sources have a
best VIKING counterpart with a reliability $R\ge 0.8$, and the false
identification rate of these is estimated to be 4.2%. We expect to miss ~5% of
true VIKING counterparts. There is evidence from Z-J and J-Ks colours that the
reliable counterparts to SPIRE galaxies are marginally redder than the field
population. We obtain photometric redshifts for ~68% of all (non-stellar)
VIKING candidates with a median redshift of 0.405. Comparing to the results of
the optical identifications supplied with the Phase I catalogue, we find that
the use of medium-deep near-infrared data improves the identification rate of
reliable counterparts from 36% to 51%.
