  We study the phase diagram of five-dimensional SU(2) gauge theories on
anisotropic lattices with periodic boundary conditions. We locate a line of
first order bulk phase transitions and second order phase transitions related
to breaking of the center along one direction. A reduction to four dimensions
occurs through compactification of one dimension but not only. By choosing a
lattice spacing in the extra dimension larger than in the other dimensions, we
find hints that the hyperplanes orthogonal to the extra dimension decouple from
each other. Our analysis is based on measurements of Polyakov loops, the static
potential extracted from Wilson loops and renormalized couplings defined
through the static force and its derivative.
