Our main result is that every graph $G$ on $nge 10^4r^3$ vertices with minimum degree $delta(G) ge (1 - 1 / 10^4 r^{3/2} ) n$ has a fractional $K_r$-decomposition. Combining this result with recent work of Barber, Kuhn, Lo and Osthus leads to the bes
t known minimum degree thresholds for exact (non-fractional) $F$-decompositions for a wide class of graphs~$F$ (including large cliques). For general $k$-uniform hypergraphs, we give a short argument which shows that there exists a constant $c_k>0$ such that every $k$-uniform hypergraph $G$ on $n$ vertices with minimum codegree at least $(1- c_k /r^{2k-1}) n $ has a fractional $K^{(k)}_r$-decomposition, where $K^{(k)}_r$ is the complete $k$-uniform hypergraph on $r$ vertices. (Related fractional decomposition results for triangles have been obtained by Dross and for hypergraph cliques by Dukes as well as Yuster.) All the above new results involve purely combinatorial arguments. In particular, this yields a combinatorial proof of Wilsons theorem that every large $F$-divisible complete graph has an $F$-decomposition.
A fundamental theorem of Wilson states that, for every graph $F$, every sufficiently large $F$-divisible clique has an $F$-decomposition. Here a graph $G$ is $F$-divisible if $e(F)$ divides $e(G)$ and the greatest common divisor of the degrees of $F$
divides the greatest common divisor of the degrees of $G$, and $G$ has an $F$-decomposition if the edges of $G$ can be covered by edge-disjoint copies of $F$. We extend this result to graphs $G$ which are allowed to be far from complete. In particular, together with a result of Dross, our results imply that every sufficiently large $K_3$-divisible graph of minimum degree at least $9n/10+o(n)$ has a $K_3$-decomposition. This significantly improves previous results towards the long-standing conjecture of Nash-Williams that every sufficiently large $K_3$-divisible graph with minimum degree at least $3n/4$ has a $K_3$-decomposition. We also obtain the asymptotically correct minimum degree thresholds of $2n/3 +o(n)$ for the existence of a $C_4$-decomposition, and of $n/2+o(n)$ for the existence of a $C_{2ell}$-decomposition, where $ellge 3$. Our main contribution is a general `iterative absorption method which turns an approximate or fractional decomposition into an exact one. In particular, our results imply that in order to prove an asymptotic version of Nash-Williams conjecture, it suffices to show that every $K_3$-divisible graph with minimum degree at least $3n/4+o(n)$ has an approximate $K_3$-decomposition,
