On multiplicative functions which are additive on sums of primes

Let ${f : \mathbb{N} \to \mathbb{C}}$ be a multiplicative function satisfying f(p ₀) ≠ 0 for at least one prime number p ₀, and let k ≥ 2 be an integer. We show that if the function f satisfies f(p ₁ + p ₂ + . . . + p _k ) = f(p ₁) + f(p ₂) + . . . + f(p _k ) for any prime numbers p ₁, p ₂, . . . ,p _k then f must be the identity f(n) = n for each ${n \in \mathbb{N}}$ . This result for k = 2 was established earlier by Spiro, whereas the case k = 3 was recently proved by Fang. In the proof of this result for k ≥ 6 we use a recent result of Tao asserting that every odd number greater than 1 is the sum of at most five primes.