  In this paper we study conditions which guarantee the existence of perfect
matchings and perfect fractional matchings in uniform hypergraphs. We reduce
this problem to an old conjecture by Erd\H{o}s on estimating the maximum number
of edges in a hypergraph when the (fractional) matching number is given, which
we are able to solve in some special cases using probabilistic techniques.
Based on these results, we obtain some general theorems on the minimum
$d$-degree ensuring the existence of perfect (fractional) matchings. In
particular, we asymptotically determine the minimum vertex degree which
guarantees a perfect matching in 4-uniform and 5-uniform hypergraphs. We also
discuss an application to a problem of finding an optimal data allocation in a
distributed storage system.
