Search for gas accretion imprints in voids - I. Sample selection and results for NGC 428

We present the first results of a project aimed at searching for gas accretion events and interactions between late-type galaxies in the void environment. The project is based on longslit spectroscopic and scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer observations performed with the SCORPIO and SCORPIO-2 multimode instruments at the Russian 6-m telescope, as well as archival multiwavelength photometric data. In the first paper of the series we describe the project and present a sample of 18 void galaxies with oxygen abundances that fall below the reference `metallicity-luminosity' relation, or with possible signs of recent external accretion in their optical morphology. To demonstrate our approach, we considered the brightest sample galaxy NGC 428, a late-type barred spiral with several morphological peculiarities. We analysed the radial metallicity distribution, the ionized gas line-of-sight velocity, and velocity dispersion maps together with Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and SDSS images. Despite its very perturbed morphology, the velocity field of ionized gas in NGC 428 is well described by pure circular rotation in a thin flat disc with streaming motions in the central bar. We also found some local non-circular gas motions clearly related to stellar feedback processes. At the same time, we revealed a circumnuclear inclined disc in NGC 428 and a region with significant residual velocities that could be considered as a result of a recent (<0.5 Gyr) accretion event. The observed oxygen abundance gradient does not contradict this conclusion.