  We study the nonlinear driven response and sliding friction behavior of the
phase-field-crystal (PFC) model with pinning including both thermal
fluctuations and inertial effects. The model provides a continuous description
of adsorbed layers on a substrate under the action of an external driving force
at finite temperatures, allowing for both elastic and plastic deformations. We
derive general stochastic dynamical equations for the particle and momentum
densities including both thermal fluctuations and inertial effects. The
resulting coupled equations for the PFC model are studied numerically. At
sufficiently low temperatures we find that the velocity response of an
initially pinned commensurate layer shows hysteresis with dynamical melting and
freezing transitions for increasing and decreasing applied forces at different
critical values. The main features of the nonlinear response in the PFC model
are similar to the results obtained previously with molecular dynamics
simulations of particle models for adsorbed layers.
