As you suspected, the list is indeed not part of the computational graph. The fact that you hold the input or output tensor of an arithmatic operation in a list, dict or any other data structure is irrelevant. Every time a tensor is involved in a derivable operation (e.g. multiplication, addition, or even concatination), the result has a reference to the location in the computational graph that is built by the operation.

In the examples you provided, note that later the tensors inside the list are used in the arithmatic ops, not the list that contains it.

For background, you may find it interesting to read a bit about how computational graphs are built.