I will report on a joint work with Amine Marrakchi. Since the early days of Tomita-Takesaki theory, it is known that a von Neumann algebra that admits a state with trivial centralizer must be a type III_1 factor, but the converse remained open. I will present a solution of this problem, proving that such ergodic states form a dense G_\delta set among all normal states on any III_1 factor with separable predual. Through Connes' Radon-Nikodym cocycle theorem, this problem is related to the existence of ergodic cocycle perturbations for outer group actions, which I will discuss in the second half of the talk. Note: This talk is part of the activity of the MUR Excellence Department Project MatMod@TOV (CUP E83C23000330006) The Operator Algebra Seminar schedule is here: https://sites.google.com/view/oastorvergata/home-page?authuser=0