  The cosmic noon (z~1.5-3) marked a period of vigorous star formation for most
galaxies. However, about a third of the more massive galaxies at those times
were quiescent in the sense that their observed stellar populations are
inconsistent with rapid star formation. The reduced star formation activity is
often attributed to gaseous outflows driven by feedback from supermassive black
holes, but the impact of black hole feedback on galaxies in the young Universe
is not yet definitively established. We analyze the origin of quiescent
galaxies with the help of ultra-high resolution, cosmological simulations that
include feedback from stars but do not model the uncertain consequences of
black hole feedback. We show that dark matter halos with specific accretion
rates below ~0.25-0.4 per Gyr preferentially host galaxies with reduced star
formation rates and red broad-band colors. The fraction of such halos in large
dark matter only simulations matches the observed fraction of massive quiescent
galaxies (~10^10-10^11 Msun). This strongly suggests that halo accretion rate
is the key parameter determining which massive galaxies at z~1.5-3 become
quiescent. Empirical models that connect galaxy and halo evolution, such as
halo occupation distribution or abundance matching models, assume a tight link
between galaxy properties and the masses of their parent halos. These models
will benefit from adding the specific accretion rate of halos as a second model
parameter.
